


In Rooms Unfamiliar

by Cherry (orchidlights)



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Biker Lesbians, Butch!Katya, F/F, Katya has her pants on the runway hair, Katya is 32 Trixie is 25, Think the first half of Monster (2003) dir. Patty Jenkins except less gross, Tribbing, cis lesbians au, depictions of alcoholism and greif
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 08:48:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14766377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orchidlights/pseuds/Cherry
Summary: Trixie is 25, running away from an abusive home, and hitches a ride into town with the hottest hells angel this side of the Mississippi.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This 'oneshot that really got away from me' is brought to you by @cherikatya. Title is a lyric from Each Coming Night by Iron and Wine, which is way too sappy for this fic, but I do what I want.
> 
> Some details that are important to me: Katya is pants on the runway!Katya. It’s the early 2000’s so nobody has iPhones. Trixie has her long flowy Coachella hair from the iconic lazy dragcon NYC 2017 look. I've drawn some vibes from the movie Monster, but this is ultimately a feel good fic because I'm soft and I love lesbians being happy.
> 
> Putting some mood music at the end if you wish to listen while you read, too. Have fun! ♥

The yellow stripes on the highway are a nice shade. Weathered and worn from years of trucks barrelling over them; they’re pale now. Pale against the concrete. Trixie’s hair used to be a similar color, when her mom had let her dye it after her 21st birthday. In retrospect, it made her look like Barbie-Meets-Raggedy-Ann, but at the time, it had made her happy. A lot of different kinds of things had made her happy at the time.

Whenever she hears the familiar growl of an engine, she sticks her manicured pink thumb out pointing West. So far no takers, but she figures she’s in a better position to be hitchhiking than some ratty drifter. _Don’t people usually take pity on pretty women?_ Another minivan speeds past her without so much as slowing down. She kicks at the dirt, lets her arm drop to her side.

She’s not stupid. In her jacket pocket lies a small can of pepper spray, and somewhere deep in her backpack there’s a butterfly knife too, not that she’s very good with it. It’s dangerous to be a 25 year old woman ( _although most of the time, she just feels like a girl_ ) walking alone. But compared to where she’s coming from, this is paradise. These backwoods highways, often clouded with mist and smog. This is a place where she doesn’t have to tear down her posters of Willow and Tara because they’re _“a little bit dykey, don’t you think?”_. This is a place without her stepdad shoving her into a wall so hard a cut opens up on her forehead. You can only be somewhere for so long before you hit a breaking point. 

The sun is beginning to fade now. She worries her bottom lip between her teeth until it’s puffy and raw. _What if nobody gets her before dark? Where will she sleep, what will she eat?_ She has enough money to make it into the city, but only if someone will fucking _work with her_.

She doesn’t even stick her thumb out at the overpowering roar of a Harley. It passes right by her, just like all the cars and motorcycles before it. But as she turns her head, she sees the bike’s brake lights flash red, pull into the shoulder several feet away. 

_They’re stopping. They’re actually fucking stopping._

She picks up her pace a little. The backpack thuds against her with every motion. Normally, she would’ve be wearing heels, but she’d settled on some pink sneakers that say _‘Sure, I’m running away from home, but I’m doing it in style’_. It was the only reason she was able to make it across the gravel in record time, coming to a stop a few feet away from the bike. 

“How much for a night?” The rider asks, grinning ear-to-ear.

“Excuse me?” Trixie blinks a few times. 

The woman removes her helmet to reveal a sleek blonde haircut that barely touches her chin. She hasn’t gotten off her bike yet, but Trixie can see red lipstick uncharacteristically bright against the rest of her outfit. Black boots, thick jeans, a leather jacket, fingerless gloves to grip the handlebars no doubt. There’s even a few tattoos peeking out over her collarbone, where the jacket has been popped open. 

“I’m fucking with you. But people are seriously gonna think you’re selling your ass if you walk around here dressed like that.” She says again.

Out of her pocket she produces a pack of cigarettes and lights one with a match. 

_Who still carries matches?_

“I’m trying to get into town, how far can you take me?” Trixie asks, gripping the straps of her backpack and shifting from one foot to the other.

The woman exhales smoke through her nose, and smiles.

“I’ll take you all the way. Far be it from me to deny a woman in need.” She pats the back of the seat with one of her hands. “Hop on.”

Trixie exhales so hard she feels like she might just collapse on the ground. After a full half day of walking, the idea of being able to sit anywhere sounds like luxury. 

“Oh my god. Thank you so much. You have no fucking idea how long I’ve been out here.” She sighs, pushing a few stray strands of hair out of her eyes as she walks up to swing her leg over the back of the bike. She stiffens a little as her frontside presses up against the woman involuntarily. The leather she’s wearing is cold, but she still emanates warmth. She flicks her cigarette onto the ground. Trixie watches as she zips her jacket back up all the way, and tugs the helmet over her hair again. 

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” She asks. 

“Oh, sorry, I’m Trixie.” Leave it to her to be so excited about a ride she doesn’t even introduce herself. 

“Trixie? That’s my favorite name!” She says. There’s something teasing in her voice that Trixie chooses to ignore. “I’m Katya.” 

Trixie suddenly feels Katya grab both of her hands, and she’s being guided to rest them on Katya’s waist.

“Don’t fall off.”

She’s been trying to keep her distance on the back of the bike, but as soon as Katya starts up the motor and taps the kickstand with her boot, Trixie is clinging to the fabric of her jacket for dear life. She’s never been on a motorcycle before. Ridden in the back of a pickup, maybe, but never a motorcycle. It hums underneath her, and suddenly she’s extremely aware of her choice to swear a skirt instead of shorts.

They drive the half hour into town without hardly saying a word.

  


~

  


On the way over, it had begun raining. While Trixie had done her best to cover her own head with one hand, pressing her forehead into Katya’s back, she’d still become soaked with water. Funnily enough, Katya didn’t seem to mind. At one point Trixie even saw her open the visor on her helmet and stick her tongue out in the rain, licking her lips and laughing, before pushing it back down. _‘Doing okay back there, princess?’_ She’d called, and Trixie had responded with a grumpy _‘Fantastic’_ as she closed her eyes against the raindrops.

Trixie was sitting on a barstool, twisting her hair around her finger until it dripped onto the wooden floor. Her perfect running-away-from-home ringlets had become damp and matted. At least her makeup had stayed in tact. _Thank you, setting spray._

Katya had pulled off the road a few minutes inside a sleepy town called Mineral Point, leading them to a bar with ‘The Chop Shop’ flashing on and off in bright neon lights above the entrance. If Trixie hadn’t felt out of place on Katya’s bike, she really felt out of place now. There were more Harleys in the parking lot than there were cars, and the inside of the bar was filled with 200-pound bearded guys with leather jackets all chugging pints of beer. 

“Here, this should help.” Trixie feels something hit her shoulder, and reaches up to grasp at a dishtowel Katya has thrown her. “Courtesy of the barkeep.” 

“Midwestern hospitality at it’s finest.” Trixie mumbles. She just barely keeps from rolling her eyes as she begins to pat down her hair with the towel. It was a nice gesture, really. Nice of Katya to take her anywhere at all. It would’ve been easier to keep driving.

Katya settles in next to Trixie on one of the stools and gives her a look up and down, slowly, like she’s expecting her to say something. Trixie probably should say something. All 145 pounds of her, sitting on a barstool with a bunch of hells angels, sporting a pink backpack and sneakers - come on, there’s gotta be a story behind that.

“If I buy you a drink will you tell me what you were doing out on the highway? Or do I have to answer your riddles three?” Katya asks her, punctuating the sentence by setting her chin on her folded hands. She has to speak a little louder over the sound of the jukebox spinning American Pie for what feels like the eight-hundredth time, mixed with a few guys are singing along in the corner, their glasses spilling over onto the tables as they clink together. 

Katya’s removed her helmet by now, her hair and makeup still exactly as they were before the rain. Every time Trixie tries to look directly at her for too long, she feels like she’s going to start doing something stupid, like blush, so she focuses on the wet ends of her own hair instead.

“They don’t have mojitos here, do they?” She asks, which gets a little laugh out of Katya.

“Oh my God.” Katya rolls her eyes, raises two fingers to grab the attention of the bartender for just a moment. “Vodka for me, and a Vodka-soda for the lady.” She says, pulling a ten dollar bill out of her pocket and setting it on the table. “It might not be a mojito, but if you close your eyes and stick out your pinky while you drink, you can pretend.” She elbows Trixie, winks as she says it. The bartender quickly snatches the money off the table.

Katya doesn’t sit like any woman Trixie has ever met before. Legs spread wide on the stool, elbows on the table. There’s this confidence behind it that Trixie has been trying to find in herself for as long as she can remember.

“I’m running away from home.” Trixie says abruptly. She sets the now-damp towel back onto the bar, combing fingers through her hair. 

“How exciting!” Katya grins. Not the reaction Trixie had been expecting. She drops her voice down low then, a hand resting on Trixie’s shoulder. “Wait, you’re not underage, are you? I can’t go back to prison.”

“I’m twenty five, fuck you!” Trixie says, and a smile finally comes to her face. Katya removes her hand, but Trixie still feels the heat from where it had been resting.

She watches Katya unzip her leather jacket, dripping with water, and hang it over the empty barstool next to her. Underneath the jacket, apparently, she’d been hiding a myriad of tattoos. And her _arms_. Trixie had to keep herself from staring for too long, but she had these crazy muscles, like she’d been doing pushups every day since she was born. The bartender sets down the drinks in front of them.

“So why are you running away?” Katya asks. 

Trixie knows that she could easily lie, or refuse to tell her. At the very least, wait until she was drunk. But Katya did buy her a whole 4-dollar drink after all. She had to give something in return.

“Well, you know that thing where like - “ She turns in her seat to face Katya. “ - you’re a lesbian, and your step dad tries to beat it out of you with a pool cue every time you talk about how hot Michelle Pfeiffer was in Scarface? That. That’s why.” She takes a sip of her drink. For 4 dollars, it isn’t half bad.

“Ugh.” Katya shakes her head, looking down at the bar for a moment. “Michelle Pfeiffer was hot in Scarface.” 

Trixie laughs under her breath. Thank God, Katya didn’t try to offer up any sympathy. She hated that shit. There were worse things than having a good excuse to escape the midwest, and sympathy did her fuck-all when she was already a good hundred miles away from her hometown with nowhere to stay for the night.

“I think you kind of have her haircut.” 

Trixie takes another sip of her drink. She’s leaning against the bar now, like she could fall asleep on it at any moment, and if it wasn’t for Katya she just might have. But all her attention is focused forward. The way Katya’s finger dances around the rim of her shot glass. Her fingernails painted as red as her lips. The half of her hair that’s tucked behind her ear to reveal an industrial bar piercing.

“Oh, well, I showed the barber a picture of her before we got started. I said, ‘take this, but make it look like I love to eat pussy.’” Katya tips back her drink, downs it in one go. 

Trixie snorts at that, covering up her mouth with one hand. Her other hand absently slaps Katya’s thigh as she laughs, lingering there with two of her fingers pressed against the rough fabric of her jeans. Trixie is almost finished with her drink, and damn her for being a lightweight, she’s feeling good. Better than she has in a while.

“So where are you staying tonight?”

The question comes out way more loaded than Trixie intended. Not that that’s a bad thing.

“Oh, I usually just curl up inside whichever dumpster is the fullest. Better than a tempurpedic, and a whole lot cheaper.” She slides her shot glass towards the bartender, motioning for him to pour her another. 

“Seriously.”

“Probably a Motel 6.”

“So are you, like, a drifter then? Or a serial killer?” Trixie asks.

“I’d like to think I’m a bit of both.” Katya makes a face like she’s deep in thought. Calculating what she should say next. “I’m on a road trip. Finding myself. Eat, pray, love, everything in that book. That’s what I’m doing.”

“Oh, gotcha.” Trixie nods. It’s obvious Katya doesn’t want to say much more. She doesn’t pry.

Trixie finishes the last of her drink. It was sickly sweet, and working twice as fast seeing as she hadn’t had anything to eat all day besides a granola bar. When she was living with her parents ( _no, not her parents, her mom and her stepdad_ ) she’d never been able to do this kind of thing. It was like a death wish to show interest in a woman, and trying to go home with one? Forget about it. She’d be caught. It wouldn’t be worth it in the end

“Want to split a room tonight?” Trixie asks.

She tries to sound cocky when she says it. Besides her foot tapping against the edge of the stool, nothing about her body language gives away how nervous she is. That her palms are sweating. That had it not been for the drink, she might not have had the courage to ask at all.

Katya is silent for a moment. The bartender swings back around to top off the shot glass. 

“And here I thought I was the one picking you up.”

Katya turns to face Trixie on the barstool. Their knees bump together. She sets her hand down right over where Trixie’s is still resting on her thigh. Her fingers are warm, and it’s like Trixie is some touch-starved freak, because even the smallest brush of skin suddenly has her heart beating and her legs pressing together. _Stupid; she probably looks so fucking stupid to this woman. Needy, young, and desperate._

“You know, if you wanted to fuck me, you could’ve just said so.” Her voice is deep again. Trixie doesn't know what the fuck to do with herself. Can Katya feel her pulse through her wrist? “Don’t even need a motel, there’s a perfectly good ladies room in here. If you get too loud I can just shove your panties in your mouth. Or maybe you’d like people hearing you. Like everyone in here knowing how much of a slut you are.”

Trixie opens her mouth. Closes it. Like a fish out of water.

Suddenly, Katya is bursting out laughing. Her knees pull up towards herself, and she beats her fist down on the bar once, grasping for her drink.

“Holy shit, you should’ve seen the look on your face!” She slams back her second shot of the night, coughing once, shoulders still shaking with laughter. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you just - oh God. You’re so fucking cute.” 

She’s grasping Trixie’s hand still, and Trixie is painfully aware that her entire face is probably bright red. She lets go of Katya’s hand and reaches forward to give her shoulder a shove.

“You bitch.” She can’t help but smiling too. Whatever Katya’s doing is infectious. Or maybe that’s the alcohol. 

“I know, I’m sorry.” Katya bites her own lip.

Trixie leans in, whispering so that the bartender can’t possibly hear.

“I was fully ready to let you fuck me over a sink.” 

She uses her hand to cover her eyes, shakes her head once. 

“Who says it can’t still happen?” Katya wiggles her eyebrows.

“Me, I’m saying it!” Trixie grabs her backpack and slings it back over both shoulders. She stands up quickly, pushing out the barstool with a loud squeak. “Can we find a motel now? Please?”

“Okay, okay, take a deep breath princess. We’ll get there.”

Katya is still grinning as she grabs her jacket and shakes it once. Tosses another ten dollars on the bar, the large tip probably just compensation for the bartender having to watch them shamelessly eyefuck eachother.

When they finally reach the parking lot, it’s no longer raining. The sky is clear and the moon is almost full. No need to squint in the dark. As Trixie slides onto the back of Katya’s bike, she wastes no time in wrapping her arms around her waist and pressing herself close. If Katya notices Trixie’s little gasp as the motor starts up, she doesn’t comment.

  


~

  
The second Trixie gets done fumbling with the motel Key and actually opens the door, Katya is on her. She’d almost expected there to be some awkward build up, but there isn’t. Just her backpack pressed into the wall behind her, and Katya’s lips suddenly on hers, a knee shoving her legs open and pressing against her through the fabric of her skirt.

Katya tastes like smoke and vodka. Not a combination that Trixie would normally deem desirable, but her head is fucking swimming with it. Trixie’s hands come up to tug down the zipper of Katya’s jacket, attempting to shove it off her shoulders as fast as she can. She only stops when she feels Katya gripping both her wrists, tight. 

“Nope.” She grins against Trixie’s mouth. “I bought the drinks, I get you naked first.” 

Trixie whines, her hands tugging a little against Katya’s grip just to feel how strong she is. Just to confirm what she already thought: she truly can’t do anything that Katya doesn’t want her to do. 

“Can I get my fucking backpack off, maybe?” Trixie asks breathlessly, as Katya leans in as if she’s going to kiss her neck. Instead, she just smiles against her skin. She lets go of Trixie’s wrists and hooks each thumb underneath a strap of Trixie’s backpack, letting it fall to the floor. She’s not worried about anything breaking. Her most valuable item in there is probably an eyeshadow palette.

Katya takes a step back, leaving Trixie standing against the wall. Those bright blue eyes rake over her entire body and it makes her shiver.

“Take off your clothes.” Katya demands; shrugs and moves to sit on the edge of the mattress. 

Right to the point then.

As Trixie begins to toe off her sneakers, Katya reaches into her jacket pocket for her pack of Marlboros again, tapping out a cigarette. Trixie’s almost positive she isn’t allowed to smoke in the room, not that she expects Katya to give a fuck. The room is under Katya’s name anyways. If they were charged it was her loss.

“You always pick up girls on the side of the road?” She asks, trying to cover up how nervous she is with a weak attempt at humor. She steps further into the room, towards Katya, towards the bed. The carpet is scratchy underneath her bare feet. Katya stays eerily silent, taking a drag off her cigarette. Trixie grasps her own top by the hem and pulls it over her head. Underneath, she’s wearing this ridiculous padded pink bra that she’d gotten herself for her own birthday. It even has rhinestones on it. She already knew that her underwear didn’t match, but God forgive her for not being ready to fuck the first person that gave her a lift.

“Only ones with tits as big as yours.” Katya replies finally. Her legs are splayed open on the edge of the bed. She hasn’t even taken off her jacket.

Trixie reaches behind herself and unzips the back of her skirt, pulling it down over her hips and stepping out. Once on the ground, she kicks the clothes to the side with her foot. She looks up at Katya, feeling awfully vulnerable in just her fancy bra and a pair of boring blue underwear she usually wears when she knows she won’t be getting laid. She gives Katya a silent look, questioning, and receives a nod in return, so she brings her hands up behind her, and unclasps the bra as well, tosses it aside. Her breasts have always felt a little obscene when they aren’t covered. It’s been that way ever since middle school. As much as she’s tried to shake it, her first instinct is to cover herself somehow. 

Katya seems to forget about her cigarette for a moment. 

While Trixie has her full attention, shaking off the thoughts of being too much, she pulls her panties down using her thumbs. Balls them up in her hands and chucks them with the rest of her clothes on the floor. It’s been maybe three days since she shaved, and there’s a tiny bit of blonde stubble forming just under her bellybutton, spreading down between her legs. _No big deal_ , she thinks to herself. _Not like she’ll care._

She crosses her arms over her midsection. The feeling of being naked in front of a fully clothed Katya has her heart racing. _What does she do, what does she do? She’s not used to this._

Katya, on the other hand, is grinning ear-to-ear at the sight.

“It’s like I fucking dreamed you up, or something.” Katya says, shaking her head. “Get on your knees.”

Trixie’s mouth falls open slightly. Wetness is dripping down her thighs as she slowly bends her knees, coming to rest on the carpet where she’d been standing. She tries not to think about all the things that have probably happened on that floor before. Mood killer and a half. Katya finally takes off her jacket then, holding the cigarette between her lips as she tugs her arms out and drops it onto the floor. 

“Your arms...” Trixie doesn’t realize she’s speaking out loud before it’s too late. “I mean, fuck - your arms are really nice.” Her entire face flushes as pink as her knees are becoming against the carpet.

Katya laughs, head tipping back. One of her hands comes down to rest on the edge of her jeans. She’s unbuttoning them, but torturously slow.

“Crawl over.” She says.

Another rush of warmth between her legs; Trixie does as she’s told. Getting to her hands and knees, slowly crawling across the floor towards the edge of the bed. Katya tugs her fly down with one of her hands, and her other hand flicks the cigarette somewhere onto the ground. Trixie’s mouth was watering. 

_I am not above begging this woman to let me eat her out, she thinks. I am not better than that._

Katya dips her fingers below the waistband of the boxers peeking out underneath her jeans. Trixie’s eyes fixate between her legs. She’s grabbing at something, that’s for sure. Just when Trixie’s getting ready to make a sub-par ‘is that a gun in your pocket’ joke, Katya pulls a fake cock out from her jeans, jet black, and inches away from Trixie’s face. _Oh. Okay._

“Holy shit.” She breathes; leans back just a little from where she had been resting on her hands. “You had that on you the whole time?”

“Yes ma’am, Deb always rides with me when I’m on the freeway.” Katya says it like it’s the most normal thing. Like wearing a strapon into a biker bar is a regular Tuesday night for her. Although to be fair, it probably is. “She doesn’t bite either.”

Trixie’s actually fucking speechless. And since she’s not using her mouth for anything better, she decides that instead of responding to Katya, it’s best to inch forward just that bit more and open her mouth. She drags her tongue up the length of it, tasting nothing but silicone, but the look in Katya’s eyes is worth it. 

“Like this?” She asks softly, pressing her lips to the head and kissing it slow. She lets her mouth open around it, taking just the tip into her mouth. Katya’s hand threads through her hair, getting a good grip on it.

“Fuck, you’re so pretty.” Katya’s breath is shaky now. She pulls Trixie’s head down further, using her hair like it’s a goddamn handle. “Such a good girl.” 

Trixie practically whimpers around the cock in her mouth when she hears those words. Between her own legs, there’s wetness dripping down to her knees. It’s a situation an a half. She brings two of her fingers between her own legs to rub over her clit just gently, hardly anything at all, but she still feels Katya tug her head back harshly.

“Did I say you could touch yourself?” Trixie’s heart beats heavy in her chest. The sound fills her ears, like someone turned up the bass on her all the way. She shakes her head. 

“You can be good, can’t you?” Katya asks. She’s smiling again, that wicked smile, and pulling on her hair to haul Trixie up into a messy kiss. Trixie’s hands find Katya’s thighs easily. Curse her stupid fake nails, but they’re good for digging into the fabric of her jeans. When they pull apart, there’s little strings of spit still connecting their lips. 

“Oh my god, Katya.” Trixie whines, shifting her knees forward again, pressing as close as she possibly can without full-on climbing into her lap. “Please, I wanna - can I ride you?” She feels Katya’s hand - the one that isn’t still in her hair - reach down to tug on one of her nipples. It’s harder than she expected. It makes her gasp.

“Get up here.” Katya finally says, and Trixie is scrambling to straddle her. Like if she doesn’t get to it in the next point-five milliseconds she’ll miss her chance for good. 

She comes to a rest with her clit pressing against the strapon, her legs curled on either side of Katya, and her arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She’s being held in place by her waist now, Katya’s hands gripping her tight enough to leave little imprints in the skin. If she’s lucky.

“Katya.” Trixie can’t get enough of her name. The way it rolls off her tongue. The way she can punctuate it with a roll of her hips, pressing herself against the strapon, and against Katya’s stomach. “ _Please fuck me_.” 

Trixie feels Katya’s hands move from her waist, lower. Gripping her by the hips and pulling her forward. Normally Trixie would’ve asked her to start with fingers, but she didn’t need it. Not with how wet she had been for the past hour. Besides, Deb didn’t seem too big, if her mouth was any decent judge. She feels the head of Katya’s cock pressing against her pussy, and inhales sharply. Katya lets go of her hips, leaning back and leaving Trixie to hold herself up.

“Sit down on it.” Katya says. Her voice is sounding more and more wrecked by the minute. 

It’s all Trixie needs to hear. 

She sinks down onto the strapon slowly. Her fingernails dig into the skin on Katya’s shoulders. When she finally sits down all the way, she’s biting down on her own bottom lip hard to try and stifle a moan that the other motel guests would surely hear through the walls. 

“Fuck.” She hisses out, letting her own eyes fall shut for a moment. She flutters them open quickly when she feels Katya move her hips up once, fucking into Trixie just that extra inch that makes her gasp. “Oh god.” She whines, lifting her hips once, and fucking herself back down into Katya’s lap.

“You’re so filthy, baby.” Katya is whispering low into her ear. “You let anyone do this, huh? Anyone who picks you up off the side of the road, you’d let them do this to you?”

Trixie thinks that she shakes her head. She’s not quite sure. She’s lost in the motion of fucking herself back and forth on Katya’s cock. Aware of all the places that Katya’s hands are, and where they have been. The imprint of them on her waist. The scratches they left down her arms, and the bracelets of red around her wrists that may turn to light bruises in the morning. 

When Katya starts moving her hips faster, that’s when Trixie really starts making noise. The walls of the motel are paper thin. She’s surprised that nobody’s banging a broomstick in their direction. Trixie’s moans are accompanied by begging; strings of _“fuck, harder, harder, fuck me harder, please”_ that melt between them. 

Katya brings a hand up over Trixie’s mouth suddenly. 

“Gonna get complaints if you keep that shit up.” She says. 

As if she wouldn’t love that.

Trixie feels Katya’s hand back at her waist, and suddenly she’s being flipped over. She lands on her back, curls falling over the comforter around her head. Katya is above her now. The hand is still over her mouth, stifling the whimpers she’s making as Katya crawls over her body and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Stay quiet now, okay, sweetheart?” She lets go of her grip on Trixie’s face.

Trixie watches silently as Katya pulls off her own tank top. _Fucking finally._ Underneath, she has a few tattoos splayed out on her chest, a piercing through her left nipple in the shape of a knife. She moves her hips forward, fucking into Trixie at a torturously slow pace, but she can’t moan. Can’t make any noise at all. Katya told her not to. Instead, Trixie grips at the sheets so hard she feels like she might rip them in half. And then Katya starts to move even faster. With every thrust, Trixie’s shoved back onto the mattress, mouth hanging open half in half awe half agony. She’s never been fucked like this before. Never felt anything like it.

“You’re so good.” Katya beams, leaning over Trixie and reaching down to dip two fingers into her mouth. Trixie sucks on them like they’re a lollipop; like they’re the only thing keeping her from moaning so loud they get thrown out of the entire complex, because they really are. “How bad do you want to come, baby? You can tell me.”

Katya pulls her fingers out of Trixie’s mouth with a pop. 

“Please.” It’s almost all she can get out. Almost. “Katya, I wanna come so fucking badly, please - _please don’t stop._ ” She’s trembling as she begs, and thankfully Katya doesn’t stop. If anything, she grabs onto Trixie by the hips and fucks her faster. Slides a hand up to wrap around her neck, too. Just holding her in place like that. Not even squeezing. Trixie’s eyes roll into the back of her head, and she’s almost positive she broke a nail grasping at the sheets by now, but she couldn’t give a shit if she tried.

When she comes, there’s really no hope of staying silent. Katya’s fucking into her so fast it’s like her body is vibrating off the bed, one hand on Trixie’s hip and one hand on her neck. She screams gutturally, clawing at Katya’s arms. 

It feels like it lasts forever.

When she finally has the wits about her to open her eyes again, Katya is standing at the foot of the bed. Taking off her jeans off one leg at a time. For a glorious second, she’s just in boxers, Deb standing proud and dripping between her legs, before she pulls those off as well. Trixie pushes herself up onto her elbows. All her bones have turned to putty inside her. In fact, her body is still shaking every few seconds with aftershocks, but she still drinks in the sight of Katya naked. Beautiful, flawless skin, abs like she stepped out of a swimsuit magazine, a small patch of honey-blonde hair between her legs, and hips adorned with even more tattoos.

“Oh, wow. The 70’s called and they want their cunt back.” It’s the first thing out of her mouth, and it’s awful.

Thankfully, Katya is awful too. She bursts out laughing.

“You rotted bitch!” She crawls down over Trixie’s body just so she can grab her by the chin. “You can’t get enough of this Traci Lords fantasy and you know it.” She kisses her roughly, smiling through it. Trixie smiles too.

“I really can’t.” She laughs against her lips. Trixie falls back against the bed again. Her arms are too weak to hold herself up comfortably any longer, and so she lets herself stretch out underneath Katya. “Come on, sit on my face.” She taps Katya’s hip.

“Oh, now that I don’t have a dick on, you’re giving the orders?” 

“I sure am.” Trixie grins as Katya climbs up the length of her body. Trixie brings her hands up to place them on either one of Katya’s hips. She parts her own lips softly, her tongue sticking out flat as Katya settles against her mouth. She tastes wicked sweet. That’s what Trixie thinks. She moans at the taste and tilts her head back, licking up the length of her pussy, tongue flicking over her clit. She licks her lips; grins up at Katya. 

“You know I haven’t eaten all day, this is basically my dinner.” Trixie starts; get’s Katya rolling her eyes in return. Katya grabs onto her hair hard, and shoves her face back between her legs.

“Shut up.” She mumbles. 

Trixie keeps her eyes open as she starts to move her mouth again. Happily; she’ll happily shut up if it’s like this. She wants to see Katya fall apart. It seems only fair. Trixie presses her tongue back and forth against her clit steadily, entire head moving with the motion, as Katya’s face above her begins to crumble. 

“Trix.” The word comes out soft, low. 

Katya’s eyes are closed now. She has one of her hands grabbing at her own breast. The skin around her fingers turns white with how tightly she’s gripping. The sight is one of the more beautiful things Trixie has ever seen. Just as Katya starts getting a rhythm going with her hips, fucking herself down onto Trixie’s face, Trixie brings her fingers up between Katya’s legs. She presses two against her entrance, feeling utterly apologetic for not having time to just bite her nails off before they got started. Slowly, she pushes two fingers inside Katya to the knuckle, pulling her mouth off her for just a moment.

“Is that okay?” She asks. 

The thought of her nails scraping up Katya’s insides isn’t doing anything for her nerves.

“Fine.” Katya grits out, and just to prove her point, pushes her hips down against Trixie’s fingers. Trixie watches them disappear inside her body, a little breath of air escaping her own mouth. Even her most vivid wet dreams couldn’t have prepared her for this. 

Trixie moves her fingers in time with her mouth now, curling them every time she pushes them inside just to hear Katya make this _‘uh’_ sound, like she’s trying to keep her composure and it’s not working very well. 

“Fuck, Trixie.” Katya’s hand is back in her hair. It’s pulling just hard enough to hurt, a little. Trixie wouldn’t have it any other way. “You’re gonna make me come.”

Trixie moans when she hears the words. Closing her eyes, she pumps her fingers inside of Katya as fast as she can. She can feel Katya’s legs shaking on either side of her head, almost smiles into her pussy - almost. 

She hears Katya mumbling _fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_ and in a moment of divine inspiration, brings her free hand down to smack Katya’s ass, _hard_. Katya actually squeals then, a high-pitched noise that’s so unlike everything else about her, and then she’s moaning loud. Trembling and rocking back and forth on Trixie’s face, practically pulling the hair right out of her head, and Trixie loves it. _Suffocate me,_ she thinks, _I can take it._

When Katya’s done, she lifts up one of her legs and rolls over to flop down on the mattress next to Trixie. The sound of heavy breathing fills the room. Somewhere in the hall outside the room, someone is using the ice machine. 

Trixie brings her hand up to her mouth and wipes away the slick that’s still covering the best part of her face. God, she can’t help but smile. Turns her head to look over to where Katya is still laying next to her.

“Okay, that’ll be 70 dollars.” Trixie whispers. A slow grin spreads across Katya’s face.

“What a bargain.” Katya covers her eyes with one arm. Trixie looks along the entirety of her body, her chest, where her legs are dangling off the edge of the mattress. She imagines that it would be in bad taste to try and do something cute like spoon her. So she stays put. After a few restless moments she crawls up to the top half of the bed, and begins to tug the covers back. It’s late, the clock reading close to midnight, and there’s not much else to say besides _that was fucking amazing_. She’s been awake and on her feet since 8 AM, and now her body is starting to ache with the telltale pains of really _really_ good sex.

“Are you tired?” Trixie asks. There’s a stupid part of her that wants Katya to get into bed with her. Just to know that there’s someone sleeping next to her. Not that she would ever say that out loud.

Katya brushes the hair out of her eyes and hums under her breath.

“No, I think I’m gonna go for a shower.” She finally says. She sits up, getting to her feet and raising her arms above her head. Her fingertips point up towards the ceiling, and then she reaches down to touch her toes. She even wraps her arms around her calves, presses her chin to her knees. Trixie’s eyebrows raise a little as she watches. _Flexible, huh?_ “You should get some rest though.” 

Katya stands back up. Her face is flushed. She’s so goddamn beautiful Trixie wants to scream. 

For a second Katya doesn’t move, and Trixie thinks she’s going to kiss her goodnight. It’s a sweet little thought, but then she’s spinning on her heel and making her way towards the dingy motel bathroom. Katya gives her a wink before closing the door. But she doesn’t say anything else. 

The room is still dark, one of the bedside lamps casting this gross yellow haze on everything. Trixie pulls the sheets up over her breasts and hugs herself. All things considered, it was a successful first night away from home. Delusionally she wondered if all nights on the road were this good. It hadn’t even been that good. She still hadn’t eaten anything. She was tired, her feet had blisters, the bed was just a little too cold without another body.

Seconds before she falls asleep, she can’t figure out whether or not she’s hearing the sound of the rain outside, or Katya in the shower.

  


~

  
When Trixie wakes up she’s alone. Which is fine.

The bedsheets are messy in such a way that tells her Katya definitely slept next to her the night before, at some point, but must have gotten up early enough to high-tail it out of there. At least she’s been spared the awkward morning-after conversation scramble. Trixie drags an arm out of the bed and fumbles around on the floor until she finds her shirt from last night. The room is uncomfortably quiet. The bed sheets hiss at her as she sits up and tugs the shirt on. She’s shivering. _Where’s the fucking heat in this place?_

She’s not hurt that Katya is gone, per-say. It just would’ve been nice to say goodbye. But that’s not the point of a one night stand. She swings her legs out of bed and walks over to where her backpack is still slumped next to the front door. A shower is definitely in order before she has to leave the motel. She smells like sex and sweat. 

_Not even a note. Not even a little lipstick kiss on a napkin. That’s fine._

Out of her backpack she pulls out a new pair of panties and her hairbrush, and walks to the bathroom with both of them in-hand. While she’s in the shower she debates back and forth between touching herself to the memory of the night prior. It wouldn’t be hard to recall the taste of Katya’s pussy grinding against her mouth. It’s still lingering under her tongue. Or the way that Katya gripped her neck while she fucked her, quickly and unforgiving. Eventually, Trixie decides against it. Wants to save that for a special occasion. A real lonely night. 

Instead she focuses on shaving the stubble between her legs and washing her hair. 

The motel bathroom has a blow dryer that’s barely functional. It takes her a good extra 20 minutes until her hair just not-quite-dry-but-no-longer-wet, at which point she ties it back in a ponytail. The makeup that she washed off in the shower clings to the rim of her eyes slightly. All her freckles stand out in the fluorescent light too, making her look bare-faced and a little bit dead. 

_Didn’t even get her number._

Trixie leaves the bathroom in just a towel, expecting to see the room just as she left it, which is mostly why she lets out a scream of surprise when there’s someone sitting on the bed.

“ _Fuck!_ You can’t knock?” She presses herself up against the door. Her heart is beating out of her chest. 

“I did, you were in the shower!” Protests Katya. “Was I supposed to pull back the curtain and Psycho you?” She’s sitting on the bed rifling through a plastic bag. “Some thanks I get for venturing all the way out into the wilderness to find you food.”

 _Food._ God, Trixie’s starving. She would eat anything right about now.

“Breakfast burritos, bitch! Catch.” Katya tosses one her way and Trixie grabs it out of the air. "I got these from a little abuelita named Lupe. I think she's my guardian angel."

Trixie would like to think that she doesn’t tear into it like a raccoon who just found a fresh pile of trash, but she probably does. Can’t even get out a _‘thank you’_ before she’s taking a huge bite. She hums contentedly with a mouthful, and Katya is grinning on the bed.

“Your stomach kept making noise in your sleep last night.” She comments.

“Really?” Trixie covers up her mouth with one hand, mumbling around her food. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine. Gave me an excuse to get up early.” Katya waves a hand.

“Do I owe you anything?” Trixie’s mouth is still full. So much for all those times her mother told her to chew with her mouth closed like a lady; none of her stupid advice ever really stuck anyways. On the bed, Katya is absently unwrapping one as she looks Trixie’s body up and down.

“Drop that towel and we’ll call it even.” Katya says. Trixie rolls her eyes, but doesn’t drop the towel. Despite how few inhibitions she has around Katya, it’s still fucking cold in the room, even while the sun shines in through the windows. _Damn you, early spring._

“You thought I’d taken off, didn’t you?” Katya asks.

“Maybe.” Trixie mumbles; walks over to sit down on the edge of the bed. Katya has changed since the night before. She’s wearing camo pants, baggy enough that Trixie honestly can’t tell if she’s got Deb with her or not. Her top is just a loose grey tank that does nothing to cover up her nipple piercing. Yesterday’s eyeshadow has clearly become today’s eyeshadow. All-in-all, she looks amazing

“Did you weep over me? Please tell me you were weeping.” Katya says, gripping Trixie’s arm in faux desperation.

“Oh, fully. I was just sitting in the shower tearing my hair out.” She deadpans. She’s already finished with her burrito and reaching for a second one. If she was really doing this life-on-the-road thing, she was going to have to get better at feeding herself regularly. Starving, as it turns out, isn’t all that cute. “I’m glad you’re back, I was actually wondering if you could drop me off at the greyhound station before you go.”

The words only sound a little sad out loud.

“Yeah, I can do that.” Katya says.

Trixie doesn’t want to make any assumptions about how much time Katya wants to spend with her. Honestly, Trixie isn’t even sure if she would want to travel with Katya, either. Their one night stand is like a perfect little snowglobe memory she can shake whenever she pleases. Untainted by reality. Sometimes, short and sweet is better. Leave things hanging around too long and you’ll find a way to fuck them up.

“Where are you headed next?” Trixie asks her out of curiosity.

“East, I think. I don’t know. This is all just an elaborate hunt for my father so I can finally finish killing the bastard.”

“I thought you were doing Eat, Pray, Love?”

“Oh, baby, the two go hand in hand. It’s gonna be a love-killing. And then I get to eat his body, and pray for forgiveness.” Katya says it all with this ridiculous tone of glee in her voice that’s usually reserved for people talking about the new episode of their favorite TV show. Trixie’s dying to know what she’s really doing riding through middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin. Tempted to ask. But she doesn’t.

  


~

  


At the Greyhound station things feel a lot more tense. 

Trixie’s always had a hard time understanding that phenomenon. How you can fuck someone and then still have the smallest of interactions feel strange. Katya even went to the trouble of waiting outside on her bike while Trixie secured her ticket for Milwaukee inside the dingy terminal, among all the other runaways and cheap travelers. 

She’s not planning on stopping in Milwaukee. Not when she has nothing tying her down. Fuck Wisconsin. The city is just a stepping stone to somewhere else, if she can figure out where the hell that is.

Katya is smoking when she gets outside. Her short blonde hair is glinting in the late morning sunlight, and Trixie wishes more than anything that she could spend another night with her in Mineral Point. Learn something about her besides the fact that she’s great in bed, and has the same fucked up sense of humor that Trixie does. 

Kissing her goodbye would seem too familiar, so she stays on the sidewalk. 

“Do you have somewhere to stay when you get to Milwaukee?” Katya asks.

“I’m still figuring it out. Doubt I’m gonna hitch a ride with someone like you again.”

“If you did, I’d be worried.” Katya ashes her cigarette on the ground.

Trixie watches as the driver steps out of the bus, starts collecting tickets of the people that have been crowding around the stop. They swarm like bees on honey. Trixie isn’t sure she’s all that excited to share a metal tube with them for several hours.

“Good luck with your eating and praying and loving.” Trixie says, and it makes Katya smile.

“Good luck with your running away. And don’t let anyone make you go back to that shithole, okay? Promise?”

“I promise.” The words shouldn’t mean so much to her, but they do.

Katya looks like she wants to say something else. A pause that’s barely a pause. But then she’s tugging down the visor on her helmet and tossing her cigarette onto the ground. She waves one little gloved hand at Trixie and starts up the engine. It’s overpoweringly loud, but Trixie waves back and stays standing there until Katya pulls away from the curb and back out onto the street.

~

Forty five minutes later she’s sitting in the back of the Greyhound with her legs pulled up against her chest. She’s been looking out the window religiously, seeing as she has nothing better to do. The stripes on the highway are a nice shade of yellow. Bright yellow, in fact. She had a sundress that color yellow once. Couldn’t remember when she’d gotten rid of it. She presses her fingers to the glass to see if she can trace the lines of the highway, and remembers that two of her nails had broken off the night before. They’re stubby and uneven now compared to the rest. She wonders if the motel maid found them discarded on the floor, or just swept them under the bed by accident. Maybe they’ll stay there for a long time. A little piece of her stuck in Mineral Point long after she’s left.

The thought keeps her smiling until they reach the city.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again, or whatever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I legitimately rewrote this three times but here you guys go!!!! At last!!!! 
> 
> Also thank you for all the comments. I know it sounds dumb, but I read every single one and they've honestly given me confidence in my writing that I haven't had in a while, so if you've given me good energy imagine me blowing you a little kis
> 
> another reading playlist awaits at the end ♥

It’s 2:34 AM and Trixie has an insatiable desire to die. 

_How tempting would that be?_ To collapse dramatically right in her work uniform. She’s certain that she could make it look effortless, even kind of beautiful, if she tried. Her manager would probably yell from behind the counter for someone to drag her body outside before it disturbs a customer. Towed out by her foot and left in the dumpster, right next to where they put all the day-old bread and broken plates. Heaven.

“I’m literally _so_ sure we don’t have quinoa.”

“Can you check with the kitchen?”

She taps her pen against her notepad once. Her eye twitches, but it’s probably not visible.

“Yeah, of course! I’ll be right back.” Anything to walk away. Her voice is the special kind of chipper that’s reserved for customer service employees and pageant girls on their third line of cocaine.

In the back of the kitchen, things are a mess. Plates are stacked on boxes are stacked on more dirty plates. Something’s on fire momentarily. It’s always like this on weekends. The perks of being a diner open 24-hours is that you get to deal with all the drunk clubbers and highschool kids stumbling out hungry and horny at the wee hours of the morning, demanding that you serve them a burger. Trixie leans against one of the tiled walls and watches some greasy teenager - _she really needs to start learning more names_ \- flip over the almost-burned-but-not-quite patties. She isn’t saying anything. Just biting the tip of her fingernail till it’s a second away from breaking.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

“Pretending to check if we have quinoa.” She sighs, “Maybe there’s some in the freezer.”

They definitely don’t have any quinoa in the freezer. In fact, Trixie would bet her entire savings that Dela, the owner, hasn’t even heard of quinoa. All of their shit is fried with lard and designed to absorb all the alcohol out of someone’s system as quickly as possible. She’s just affording herself a few extra minutes of precious alone time before she has to go back out to the dining area. 

The small hallway in front of the freezer, hidden behind all their industrial boxes and cleaning supplies, is blissfully quiet. She sits for a moment on a carton of canned tomatoes and breathes. In her head she’s practicing what she’ll say when she gets back out there. _No, we’re fresh out of quinoa, but here’s some rice that I spit on._

It’s almost Milwaukee. Technically a twenty-five minute drive from the outskirts of the city, if you’re breaking the speed limit; A pleasant place called Saloma with a population of about one hundred and fifty thousand. After she’d left Mineral Point everything had fallen into place so fast, with her checking Craigslist job postings morning noon and night, in every neighbouring town she could think of until something came up.

Why Saloma? The job was in Saloma.

For the first week she was staying at some piece of shit motel room a block from her new job, and while 40 bucks a night doesn’t exactly break the bank, she was in fact running out of money. It had been a stroke of fate, maybe, or God herself finally throwing Trixie a fucking bone, when one of her coworkers mentioned that her subletter backed out and she was frantically scrambling for a roommate.

On the first day in her new room, barron and undecorated, Trixie may or may not have cried briefly when she got to sit down on the mattress laying on the floor and think _this is my bed. All Mine._ When questioned about her puffy eyes, she’d said it was seasonal allergies.

Trixie stands up from where she’s been sitting and flattens out her uniform. All the girls had to wear these little pink dresses with blue aprons. Trixie might’ve protested if it didn’t match half of her wardrobe already. She makes her way out to the dining area like she’s walking to get her kneecaps busted, but puts on her best _I love customers!_ smile. Everyone at the table seems even more impatient than they were before.

“Sorry, chef says we don’t have any. Does rice work?”  


~

Trixie still thinks about Katya from time to time. Quietly in the shower, or in her bed at night after a long shift. Often when she’s walking home as the sun comes up. She’s practically nocturnal, which leaves a lot of time to wistfully stare out into the parklands near her window and overdramatically think about love lost.

It would have been so easy to get her phone number. Or Just ask where she was headed. 

Stupid move, even by Trixie’s standards.

“What are you doing?”

Her roommate’s voice from the other room snaps her out of whatever mental tangent she’d been on. She’s standing there in her underwear motionless with a pink sequined dress in her hand. The light through the window makes her look pale, it’s a full moon, but the string lights in her room are glowing a nice honey color.

“What? Sorry. I don’t know.”

A small brunette head pokes through her door.

“If you’re too tired we can stay in.”

“No, I want to go out. I really want to go out.” 

Trixie’s roommate is... she’s a piece of _work_ , if Trixie’s being honest. Beth-Anne, although she likes to go on and on about all the things she’d almost been named. Tamara, Kaitlynn, or even the daunting Bethany-Kaitlynne-Mae. On rare occasions her and Trixie can bond over being in a similar predicament, having been raised in the middle of nowhere, currently seeking a new outlook on life. Beyond that it’s like beating a dead horse. Trixie had once made a frankly hilarious joke about giving her cousin a handjob and Beth-Anne had locked herself in the bathroom for half an hour.

Trixie begins to pull on the dress over her hips, watching herself in the mirror propped up against the wall. Right next to the mirror is her floor mattress; her beloved bed, where she sleeps most of the daylight hours away, covered with fluffy comforters and more pillows than a girl sleeping alone really needs. She settles the straps over her shoulders and pushes her tits up once. Even in the dim light, the dress is reflecting off the walls like a disco ball. _Saloma isn’t ready for all this body._ She thinks; and a moment later _I’m so fucking overdressed._

The club Trixie’s after is called Briar Creek, which sounds more like a taphouse than a nightclub, because it is. Six nights a week it’s where you go after work to get cheesy fries and beer, but on Friday they clear out the tables to form a makeshift dance floor, with a DJ and everything. On top of that, every first Friday of the month is ladies night. As in, ladies-for-ladies. The best part is that her roommate has no fucking idea, which means Trixie gets to watch an increasingly confused slightly catholic waitress in her early 20’s fend off a bunch of repressed horny lesbians all night. _If that isn’t a perfect weekend, then what the hell is?_

Despite Trixie’s initial mental picture of the joint, which was ten-or-so odd hipsters dancing to morose electric guitar noises, it’s well attended. The music is loud enough to make everyone resort to body language and the lights are dark enough that nobody really knows if the person they’re kissing is a nine, or more of a six-point-five. Around the bar, there’s a number of girls squished together, throwing arms over shoulders as they try and get the attention of three bartenders all sporting undercuts and suspenders.

“There’s so many girls!” Beth-Anne yells over the music. 

It’s fucking hilarious. In fact, it’s all Trixie can to do bite her own cheek and stifle a grin. 

“Can you buy the first round? I don’t get paid till Friday.” She adds.

“I work where you work. We both get paid on Friday.” Trixie responds.

Instead of answering, her roommate puts on this pouty face and presses her hands together in prayer. It’s probably all she can do to buy the poor girl a drink. Still, in all the four months since she moved to Saloma, she hasn’t met up with anyone who truly knows how to have a good time. 

Trixie makes an _uuuuugh_ sound out loud, but she’s already reaching for her purse.  


~

  
The girl in her lap is named - wait, _fuck._ She has a name. Probably. Trixie had heard her say it about an hour ago, even repeated it back to her, said it sounded beautiful. But now she’s just some readhead who’s using Trixie as a barstool. And of course Trixie is that special level of drunk where every time she closes her eyes, and feels the warmth against her lap, all she can think about is three months prior when Katya had been laying against her body on some shitty motel room mattress.

As if that isn’t sweet enough to make you want to gag.

It’s not as if Trixie’s spent the entire four months pining. She’s been making a real, tangible effort to meet people. She’s at a bar for Christ’s sake; she’s flirting. But there’s always this part in the back of her mind that’s nagging her with the knowledge that no matter how far she gets with a woman, it won't be the same. They won’t look at her with that subtle reverence, and they won't grab her so hard it leaves bruises. 

There’s other parts of her old life she’s been missing too, like her guitar. Back in highschool, when her family had been too dirtfuck poor to afford an instrument of any kind, Trixie had stayed in the band room during her free period nestled up with a mini Martin. It was a good excuse to stay late. Every time she started playing suddenly the whole world, all it’s fucking filth and complexities, just melted away around her. Even after she graduated high school, she’d gotten to know her music teacher so well that on Fridays, he would let her take a bus thirty minutes to the campus so she could sit in the music room with him. 

In Saloma there was one music shop, nestled between a bakery and a used auto parts dealer. Trixie had been going in at least twice a week consistently since she’d discovered it. At first she hoped the girl at the front desk might be gay, but upon further questioning, found out that she was just vegan and really into feminism.

The girl on Trixie’s lap is definitely gay. If Trixie really wanted to fuck her they probably already would’ve been making out furiously against the bar, but she’s been losing interest with every passing minute, starting right around when Miss Nameless began talking about her various pinterest boards.

Trixie’s roommate took off an hour ago. There’s nothing in particular keeping her in the club.

“I think I have to get going.” She calls out over the music.

“Really?” 

“Yeah, sorry.” 

“That sucks!” The girl says, indifferently.

“I’ll see you around!” 

Trixie’s gently pushing the girl’s hips forward and off her lap. If Miss Nameless is offended at the brush-off, she keeps it to herself. Or she’s too drunk to notice. She says something to the bartender about another sex on the beach.

As Trixie migrates towards the door, the air fades back to that crisp night wind that makes her arms grow goosebumps. 

She’s better than this. 

Alone on a Friday night, not even able to get into a random hookup, she’s _better than this goddamnit._

Outside the club, cigarette smoke clouds the street. The next few blocks west are crowded with food carts that prey on drunk people like her, even giving Dela a run for her money. _Food._ Food sounds amazing right now.

An Audi speeds through the district, blowing leaves onto the sidewalk, and some college guy leans out of the window to scream ‘lesbos’, accompanied by the laughs of several other men. As Trixie walks along the street her heels click. It would’ve been a better idea to wear boots. The spring rains keep leaving the ground wet, and sometimes the heel of her pink pump will stick itself through a mass of wet leaves. She’s on a mission for a hot dog, and if that’s a mission she has to accomplish alone, so be it. 

It used to be that she didn’t enjoy doing anything by herself, but these days, she doesn’t really have a choice. The cart is an easy two blocks down and he arrives there in record time.

The drunk couple in front of her in line are having a kind-of interesting conversation. He’s mad, insisting that if he just was at a computer, he’d be able to prove that the moon landing was faked due to the conflicting shadows. She’s giving him the classic ‘you’re embarrassing me’ girlfriend spiel, as he sips vodka out of a water bottle, and she tugs on his arm. Trixie wonders if she would be happier being straight. It’s morbidly fun to think about. Maybe bliss looks like this: two stupid fuckers arguing about useless information before they go home, do missionary, and go to sleep.

That’s when she hears the voice. 

_The_ voice.

“This is why you sick fucks only have one and a half stars on yelp!”

Trixie whips her head around. 

Carried between two surly bouncers is this familiar body. There’s a flash of silky short blonde hair, and bright red pants up to her navel. 

_No fucking way_. 

She’s not wearing anything on top besides a black sports bra, showing off a few familiar tattoos on her ribs. One of her combat boots comes down to kick at the guy on the left, catching his shin. They shove her onto the street in response. 

She lands on her ass and instead of sitting back up, lays down on the concrete like it’s someone’s bed. 

“You saw it here, folks, these guys love enacting violence on women! Helpless, dignified, respectable women.” She waves her finger in the direction of the bouncers as they make their way back into the bar. Trixie’s just trying to figure out what exactly is happening. _What the fuck is Katya doing in Saloma? It’s been three months._

“What a mess.” Someone in front of her in line mumbles. 

Katya seems to be taking her sweet time when it comes to getting up off the ground. The bouncers have lost interest and disappeared back inside. Meanwhile Trixie is pretty sure she’s about to burst a blood vessel. 

It’s too fucking random. 

Katya climbs to her feet, and once she’s upright, stumbles once. _Drunk. Definitely drunk._ She’s fumbling in her pocket for a cigarette. Trixie watches her fingers wrap around a lighter, spark it once, twice, three times, holding it close to her mouth. She hisses _fuck_ underneath her breath, but on the fourth try, finally, the flame stays lit. Katya still doesn’t see Trixie. She’s wearing a fucking hot pink sequin dress. _How does Katya not see her?_ She’s like a giant neon sign that says See Me Please!

This is the woman Trixie’s been spinning tales of. The elusive and mysterious biker lesbian, goddess of the highways, a phantom of an angel, best lay of Trixie’s life. She abandons the line for the food cart, approaching Katya slowly. Her fingernails dig into the skin of her palms. _What the fuck does she even say?_

“How much for a night?” 

It’s close enough to hello. 

Katya spins around.

“Holy shit, Trixie?”

_Finally._

Katya’s charcoal-black eyes go wide. She reaches out and grabs Trixie by the shoulders, squeezing, as if to check if she’s real. Her hands are ice cold.

“Definitely not hallucinating.” Katya mumbles it almost to herself. The cigarette looks like it'll fall out of her mouth for a moment, before she brings two fingers up to hold it. “Trixie. Oh my god. What are you doing here?”

She’s exactly like Trixie remembered. Exactly.

“I live here now. What are _you_ doing here?” Trixie asks.

She’s keeping it together, but there’s a slight smile creeping onto her face. She’s been picturing this moment - their theoretical and unlikely reunion - ever since the Greyhound pulled out of the station. She never imagined it quite like this.

“Trying to get a fuckin’ drink, but they aren’t having it.” Katya replies and waves her hand in the direction of the bar. “Some piece of shit road hog is in there insulting Jodie Foster and I’m supposed to sit there on my barstool and, what? Not punch him? Mind my own? I don’t fucking think so, bitch.” She’s rambling, her words tripping into each other.

“You punched him?” Trixie asks.

“Hell yes I punched him!” Katya runs a hand through her own hair, and then winces. “He punched back too. Shit. Am I bleeding?” She tilts her head towards Trixie.

Trixie reaches forward and uses two of her fingers to push back a bit of Katya’s hair. No, she shakes her head, she isn’t bleeding. Just absolutely shitfaced and fresh out of a bar fight. 

Trixie feels Katya’s fingers wrap around her wrist. 

She tenses. 

Katya’s grinning around her cigarette, biting down on the filter and flashing those perfect teeth. Trixie still remembers how they felt underneath her own tongue. Smooth, and sharp.

“How’ve you been, gorgeous? Miss me?”

_Yeah, a little._

“You wish.” 

Trixie is about to drop Katya’s hand, but feels her sway in place, and grips her harder to keep her properly upright. People pass in a blur on either side, crawling over the sidewalk or stumbling into the street, and Trixie can feel her wrist growing warm under Katya’s grip. The last of the cold and dead winter leaves crush underneath Trixie’s feet as she steps in closer to Katya to avoid getting elbowed by a drunk college girl. It’s been about an hour since the night has reached its peak darkness, and now a small bit of blue and orange are seeping back into the sky.

“It’s good to see you.” Trixie says softly.

Katya twists the cigarette between her teeth.

“Oh, I’ve been on your fuckin’ mind, haven’t I? If you’ve had any wet dreams about me, you aren’t allowed to keep it a secret.” She leans in, suddenly putting on this weird faux-british accent that has Trixie scrunching up her face. “It’s just not polite, Barbara.”

“Do you have somewhere to stay? You’re fucked up.” 

“I was, uh - I’m staying with a friend. But she’s a ways out of town.”

“You’re not gonna get on your bike like this.”

“No, I’m definitely not.” Katya drops Trixie’s wrist and leans against the streetlamp. When she exhales, smoke spills out of her nose. 

She’s wearing a different lipstick this time. Pale nude, almost grey, making her face seem even more striking. After their encounter, Trixie had tried her best to keep an accurate mental image of Katya, recalling her face over and over again until bits began to fade. It was hard meeting someone once and then spending weeks upon weeks grasping at straws to remember the exact color of their skin tone. The way their nose was shaped. How full the lips. 

“Who are you staying with?” Trixie asks.

Katya said ‘she’. Was it too presumptuous to hope it wasn’t a girlfriend? Katya seemed to pick up on her prying tone because she paused for a moment, exhaling again, and then answering.

“Just a friend. We used to ride together on the West Coast. She’s a mean son of a bitch, but she’s got a spare bed in her trailer, and I like em’ mean.”

“You’re trailer trashing?”

“Only for a bit. ‘Till I get a game plan.” 

She’s almost done with her cigarette.

“So you didn’t stalk me here.” Trixie says.

“Hmm, maybe I did though.” Katya wraps her arm around the lamp post. “Maybe I have a fuckin’ - like, a stack of pictures of you. Taken from behind bushes. Every night I just rub them over my body and orgasm uncontrollably.”

Trixie knows her roommate is going to kill her, but fuck her - absolutely fuck her to hell - if that’s going to let Katya out of Trixie’s sights again. There’s no way.

“You should stay with me tonight. I live six blocks from here.”

Katya pauses; opens her eyes, a smile creeping over her face.

“You just can’t run into me without taking me home.” She reaches forward and hooks her finger around one of Trixie’s ringlets, twirling it back and forth. Trixie stays still. “Are you really that pussy-starved?”

“I’m not pussy-starved, you bitch, I’m trying to make sure you don’t fall asleep drunk in an alley somewhere.” Trixie says.

Katya considers this for a moment. She ashes her cigarette with one hand and steps in closer, her finger still playing with Trixie’s hair like it’s a toy. To onlookers, they must seem disgustingly cliche. Trixie in her pink dress with her fake lashes, and Katya in her fresh-off-the-bike stone butch fantasy getup. She’s standing close enough that Trixie can pick up on the faint scent of cologne. _Of course she doesn’t wear perfume._

“You’re so sweet.” Katya mumbles. “Will you kiss me?

“I feel like you’re gonna’ throw up on my face.”

“I’m not that drunk.

“You really are.”

Katya flicks her cigarette onto the ground. It sparks briefly, and then dies against the damp concrete. 

“You’re such a fuckin’ doll.” Katya purrs. She takes a step forward, until Trixie can feel the entirety of her body pressed up against her front, and Katya’s hand ghosting over the small of her back. It’s funny. In heels, Trixie’s a good three inches taller, and yet Katya’s still acting like she has the upper hand. Like she wouldn’t need Trixie to bend down to kiss her. 

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

Trixie doesn’t know what to say. This isn’t the Katya she met on the side of the road; this is a much less coordinated Kaya. Inhibitions utterly abandoned, or more accurately, thrown onto the pavement. 

“Please start walking with me so I don’t have to drag you home.” Trixie sighs.

Katya’s eyes flash down Trixie’s body for a moment, then back to her face. She’s swaying again. The bulb of the streetlamp casts a little twinkle of light in each of her pupils.

“Okay. But if I pass out, promise to pose my body into compromising positions and take photos and blackmail me with them.”

“I promise.” Trixie says.  


~ 

  
The apartment is so quiet.

Six blocks away from the bar scene and you’re basically rural again; that’s how Saloma is. The party is elusive and you have to chase the feeling of a crowd, otherwise you’re left with nothing but quaint townhouses and the sounds of open nature. It had taken Trixie a good half hour to steer Katya back to the complex, up the daunting flight of stairs to the fourth floor, and into their home. As she opens the door and shoves Katya through the threshold, Trixie kicks her heels off at the door, flexing her toes against the hardwood. Being quiet seems futile. She reaches out to flick on the light, which hums and blinks once, before the room is suddenly bathed in an unflattering yellow glow. She always hated that overhead light.

“You sure you don’t want me on the couch?” Katya asks. 

“Shhh. Don’t be stupid.” Trixie whispers, sets her purse softly onto the kitchen island. It’s cluttered with magazines she hasn’t gotten around to throwing out. Trixie keeps joking that she’s gonna make a dreamboard consisting only of girls she wants to fuck, and hang over the mantle. Next to the sink, there’s at least seven dirty dishes, she counts quickly. And there’s a laundry basket next to the couch. And she left one of the windows open, so it’s cold. 

Trixie takes a few steps forward and grabs Katya’s hand again, tugging her in the direction of the hallway. The less of their crappy living space she sees the better.

“This way, please.” 

Katya’s boots are loud against the floor as she follows. It’s a thumping that grows increasingly uneven, making her wince, until Trixie finally opens her bedroom door and steps inside. The string lights hung above her windows are still glowing like honey; she’d left them on earlier, so that when she inevitably came home drunk, she wouldn't have to search for the switch in the dark. 

Her room is pleasant compared to the rest of the house. Maybe that’s a good strategy: leave everything messy in the commons so that by default, her little floor mattress and scant decorations seem chic and tidy.

Trixie fully expects Katya to dig on her lack of furniture, or have some kind of shitty comeback, but when she turns around, Katya’s leaning back up against the wall with her eyes cast down at the floor. 

“Can I have some water?” She asks quietly.

It’s a simple question. It shouldn’t tug at something in Trixie’s chest.

“Yeah, of course.” 

She turns to pad back out into the hallway. The wind is blowing outside against the large glass windows, mingling with Trixie’s fingers tapping against the counter as she fills up a cup with water. She drinks half of the cup herself, and then fills it up again. In the distance, she can hear the sounds of Katya moving around. She makes her way quickly down the hall and through the bedroom door. 

When she returns, Katya is sitting on the edge of Trixie’s mattress, struggling with the laces on her boots.

“I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking when I tied these.” Katya mumbles. “Who was I trying to keep out?”

Trixie shuts the door behind her and shuffles across the room. She kneels down next to the bed, and sets the cup of water on the ground. The frown on Katya’s face is that of a child.

“Oh my god, just let me do it.” Trixie huffs.

She swats Katya’s hand and reaches for the laces, using one of her fingernails to hook under an extremely secure double knot and begin to tug. Above her, Katya grabs the cup of water off the floor and begins chugging it like she’s about to die. Trixie’s not even finished undoing her second lace before she’s drank the entire glass. Once she’s done, Katya drops the empty cup onto the comforter, and flops back onto the bed. There’s still a few drops of water clinging to her chin. _Been there_ , Trixie thinks.

“Fuck.” Katya gasps, and rubs a hand down her face. “Where are we?”

“We’re in my apartment.” 

“Right.” 

A moment of pause.

“Why am I here?”

“You’re drunk and I wanted to make sure you didn’t crash your bike.” Trixie says matter-of-factly.

“Awful nice of you.”

Trixie grabs the heel of Katya’s boot and pulls it off the rest of the way. Barefoot, Katya immediately curls her legs up underneath herself, and rolls back over Trixie’s pink sheets so that she can rest her head on one of the pillows. Everything about Katya is so unlike anything else in the room it’s almost as if she was poorly photoshopped in. 

Trixie watches as Katya reaches down and begins to unbutton her fly.

“I hope you know I scream in my sleep. And I spin tales too, I’ll tell you how you’re going to die.” 

Her voice is half muffled by the pillow.

“That sounds kind of hot.” Trixie says. “But I already know how I’m gonna’ die. Forty-five years old, blow-dryer in the bathtub suicide while listening to a vinyl of Dolly Parton.”

It elicits this ridiculous wheezing laugh from Katya, who suddenly forgets that she was taking off her pants, abandoning them around her hips. 

“I see that for you!” Katya laughs. 

Finally, she lifts her hips up and tugs her pants the rest of the way. Once they’ve been kicked onto the floor, she rolls over until she’s laying face-down in just her little sports bra and a pair of briefs that look straight out of a Calvin Klein mens ad. Not that Trixie’s complaining.

Trixie stands up to walk over to her closet. As she unzips the back of her dress, she hears Katya’s head lift up off the pillow. It’s cute to know that she’s being watched, but she pulls the straps down quickly, steps out of the sparkly pink fabric, having to pull a little harder to get it over her hips before it drops to the floor.

“Oh my god, you’re such a fucking _piece_.” Katya calls excitedly from where she’s laying. “Wait, can you put the dress back on? Can you do that again slower?”

“Why haven’t you passed out yet?” Trixie asks over her shoulder as she grabs one of her little shapeless pajama shirt-dresses out of her closet. 

She unclasps her bra and lets that drop to the floor as well. While she’s pulling the nightie over her head, she’s waiting with baited breath for Katya to say something else. Maybe ask for a spin, or demand she crawl over the floor again, but there’s just silence. When she turns around, she understands why. Katya’s hugging Trixie’s pillow tightly, eyes closed, hair falling in all directions around her face. She looks serene compared to how she’d looked getting thrown out of the bar. If Trixie was more sentimental she might’ve had the instinct to stare for a while.

Trixie switches off her bedroom lights. The room feels nice when it’s dark. Cool and calm; she shuffles her feet across the floor until she reaches the edge of the mattress. 

Katya is laying far enough across the bed that Trixie doesn’t have to move her. As she pushes the comforter back and slips underneath the covers, Katya stirs. Trixie can feel her leg press up against the side of Trixie’s body; it’s warm against her cold sheets. Outside the window, a car screeches to a stop and then drives off. 

Katya mumbles something that Trixie can’t quite make out. 

“What was that?”

“This is nicer than a motel.” Katya repeats.

“It’s not that nice.”

“I know.”

Trixie feels Katya move one of her hands across her stomach. Gently, with creeping fingers, she grabs onto Trixie’s side and tugs her closer. In the dark, Trixie lets out a breath of air.

“Night.” Katya sighs, before she goes still again.

Trixie doesn't reply. When she finally falls asleep, Katya is still holding onto her.  


~ 

  
The mid-day sunlight is beating down right onto the bumper of someone’s car in the complex parking lot four stories below, which in turn is bouncing off Trixie’s window pane and hitting her directly in the eye. Usually there’s a gentle type of pleasure that comes with being woken up by the sunlight as opposed to an alarm, but this morning it feels harsh. Trixie groans and covers her eyes with both hands to ward off the light. Whatever rain-filled clouds had haunted the town yesterday are gone. They’ve been replaced by a dry heat that has Trixie sweating under her comforter. Someone at work had mentioned something about a warm front. After a moment she pulls one of her hands away from her eye and sees a streak of black on her palm, like she’s been chimney sweeping. _Fuck, right, her makeup._ She’d been so caught up getting Katya into bed the night before she’d forgotten to take it off.

_Speaking of which._

She turns her head slowly. 

There’s a large part of her that’s expecting Katya to be gone like last time; maybe already out in Trixie’s kitchen cooking breakfast in her underwear, or doing the walk of shame back to wherever she left her bike. Instead, Katya is next to her and laying on her back. Sometime in the night she must have taken off her bra, because she’s pushed the covers down to her navel and her nipple piercings are glinting in the sunlight. Ball bearings this time. Trixie sucks in a little breath. It’s not every day she gets to wake up next to a beautiful woman, even if that beautiful woman is about to come face-to-face with a hangover any minute now. Small blessings.

Katya didn’t remove her makeup either, but it looks more or less the same as it had the night before. _The inexhaustible resilience of a smokey eye,_ Trixie thinks to herself. The skin over Katya’s collarbone is shiny with sweat, same with her forehead, and her now-pink lips are parted half an inch. On the left side of her breast she has this tattoo that Trixie fixates on. It’s a word in Cyrillic that Trixie won’t even pretend she can decipher, but she wonders momentarily if Katya speaks Russian, or she just thought it looked cool and it actually says something useless like ‘lettuce’.

Making every effort not to wake her, Trixie grips the comforter with one of her hands and slowly pulls it over herself so that she can scoot out of the bed and onto the hardwood floor. 

Katya doesn’t even twitch. 

The alcohol has left her partially comatose, which Trixie is thankful for as she pads out of the bedroom and scurries into the bathroom. _Time to stop looking like a raccoon._ While she drags a makeup wipe over her face in the mirror, she wonders, briefly, if she’ll ever get to meet Katya under flattering circumstances. At this rate it seems unlikely.

It’s twenty minutes past noon. Trixie’s roommate, for all her shortcomings, likes to wake up early and get the fuck out of dodge. It leaves Trixie free to walk around in her underwear and blare country music while she cooks. And it’s not until Trixie’s just starting a pot of coffee, the sweet melodic voice of Alison Krauss floating through her CD player, that she hears the shower start up in the other room. Water moving through pipes echoes throughout the whole apartment. It’s a grinding and gurgling sound that’s enough to keep someone up, if they’re a light sleeper. Trixie wonders if the shower is dirty. There might be a ring of blonde hair over the drain if Trixie forgot it was her turn to clean. 

When Katya emerges a good twenty minutes later, her hair is wet, combed back, and clinging to her neck. Apparently at some point she had thrown on one of Trixie’s shirts that reaches down to her thighs, almost looking like a mini-dress. One of her hands is absently tugging at the hem, twisting it and letting it fall, as she comes to lean against the edge of the countertop. The relentless sunlight pouring in through the windows has her squinting.

“I hope you don’t mind.” Katya says, gesturing to the shirt, “I didn’t want to give your roommate an eyeful of me.”

“Oh it’s fine, she’s not here.” Trixie replies. “So you should probably take it off.” 

Katya smiles and lets her eyes roll into the back of her head.

“Listen, one cup of coffee and I’ll do anything you want. Tabledance, clean your fucking fridge, you name it.” 

Trixie’s already grabbing two mugs out of the cupboard. One is this gaudy pink floral print, and the other is something she got from goodwill that says ‘World’s Best Grandma’ in comic sans. She decides that one can go to Katya. 

“How do you take it?” Trixie asks, reaching for the coffee pot. 

“Blindfolded, sweaty, and right next to the dumpster behind a Popeye’s.” Katya grips the edge of the countertop and hoists herself up so that she’s sitting on the marble. Then she grins. “Black, please.” 

Trixie stifles a small laugh, and watches the little licks of steam rise from each of the cups as she pours. If she squints, it almost looks like mist. On the rare occasions when Trixie is awake in the mornings, she likes to go for quick fifteen-minute walks into the woods behind their complex, and especially in the spring, mist will lay upon the ground like it’s a new type of flora. It always reminds her of the mist from the highways. The same mist the Greyhound had driven through a few hours after Katya dropped her off, all those months ago, that had curled around the bus like a kettle cozie and obscured all the trees. It was so thick Trixie remembered thinking, _it’s a miracle the driver doesn’t crash. It’s a miracle we’re here._

“You’re such a stereotype.” Trixie says.

She slides the World’s Best Grandma cup towards Katya. It makes a screeching sound over the countertop the entire way.

“What do you mean?” Katya asks. 

She grabs the cup of coffee and holds it close to her chest like it’s a newborn.

“Come on. You know what I mean.” 

“Oh, what, I’m not allowed to be a diesel dyke who drinks her coffee black, is that it?”

Trixie pads across the kitchen to open the fridge and retrieve a bottle of soon-to-be-expired creamer. It has a piece of blue tape on it, and ‘Beth-Anne’ written in large block letters that she strategically chooses to ignore. She sure as fuck isn’t drinking black coffee. Not if her life depends on it.

“I’m just saying, making your coffee actually taste good won’t turn you straight. Trust me, I’ve tried that already.”

Katya smiles over the lip of her mug.

“If only it were that easy.” 

They’re on opposite sides of the kitchen. A good five feet feels like a valley in between them. As nice as it sounds, Trixie thinks it might come off as unnatural to get any closer. Instead of making a move, she leans against the countertop in her oversized t-shirt, pressing her legs together for warmth and blowing on the steam rising from her cup.

“Sorry about last night, by the way.” Katya breaks the silence. If Trixie had to guess, she might say that Katya almost sounds genuinely ashamed. “Hopefully I didn’t say anything totally unredeemable or incriminating.”

Trixie shrugs.

“I mean, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news...” She sucks in a breath between her teeth. “... but you did tell me that you loved me, threw up on my shoes, and gave me the coordinates to that truckstop in Iowa where you hid the body.”

“Shit.” Katya shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “I always do this.”

Trixie takes another sip of her coffee, and then adds. “You didn’t do anything embarrassing, don’t worry about it.”

“I feel like I remember being angry at my shoes.”

“Yeah, I had to get those off for you.”

Katya scrubs a hand over her eyes. The ends of her hair are beginning to dry and taking on a slight curl. It’s a wonder to Trixie how she manages to still look so beautiful hungover and fresh out of the shower. In the same situation, Trixie’s positive she would look like a gremlin.

“I wasn’t in the best place 12 hours ago.” Katya admits, “ But it’s okay, I’m a changed woman now, and it’ll never happen again, so help me God.”

Trixie nods. Mentally she’s recalling everything they have in the fridge. Eggs, sad vegetables, butter. It’s probably enough to scrap together a shitty omelette if Katya wants to stick around for breakfast.

“It was actually kind of cute.” Trixie says. “You said a lot of nice things about me.”

“Oh yeah?” Katya smiles and wiggles her eyebrows. 

“You wanted me to kiss you, but I wouldn’t.”

“And denied me, in my time of need?” 

“Maybe I’m making you work for it.” Trixie sets the mug down on the counter.

Katya raises an eyebrow. The temperature is climbing what feels like close to eighty degrees outside, and the heat creeping into the apartment has a few beads of sweat forming on Katya’s neck again, even though she just got out of the shower. 

Back in highschool, Trixie remembered when she was convinced she’d never be able to hit on a girl if her life depended it. She’d stayed up late on weeknights reading stolen copies of playboy, trying to figure out how exactly women wanted to be treated. All the advice was about how to be a _man_ for her, how to love her like a _real man_ , how to give her that rugged masculine energy she secretly desired. For a while, it had Trixie scared shitless that her affinity for women meant she would eventually have to shave her head and get snakebites. _Gay girls probably hate the color pink, and I love the color pink, so I’m straight._ That was her logic. It was this idea that kept her saying yes when guys had asked her to the dance, or out to the movies. This notion that everything about her being was designed in the image of a heterosexual, and betraying that would be betraying all the other things she loved, was a plague

Here, with Katya, she was determined to make herself proud. 

“ _Making_ me?” Katya repeats, slowly. “Them’s fightin’ words.”

_This is natural. This is what people do._

Before Trixie can respond Katya is hopping down from the counter. All of her movements are so fluid it makes Trixie feel like she’s being clumsy simply by standing still. Katya lands on the wood floor with both bare feet and sets her mug down with a small clink. She reaches both of her hands up above her head, twisting left, slowly, and then right. 

“Are you an athlete?” Trixie asks.

“What?”

“You seem really flexible.”

Katya’s eyes light up.

“Oh _bitch_ , you wanna see flexible?” Katya asks, holding up a finger, and then clasping her hands together. “Wait - stay there, check this out.”

Katya turns her back to Trixie. The hem of her shirt is half-tucked into her briefs. For someone who would essentially be classified as skinny, she has this amazing ass; Trixie feels like she could stare for about an hour longer, but then Katya is bending back, back, further still, until she reaches her arms out and lands palms-open on the ground in a backbend. It comes out of nowhere, and involuntarily, Trixie lets out a noise that’s half-laugh half-scream and her mouth falls wide open.

“What the fuck?” She gasps. Katya sticks out her tongue and turns her head to either side once. “Stop, I hate that so much!” 

Katya sucks her tongue back in and laughs.

“I did gymnastics in highschool. It’s good at parties.” She pushes herself back up off her hands, stumbling twice and then finding her footing. The backbend has sent her hair in all different directions, and now it’s messy and curly around her face.

“Oh my god.” Trixie shakes her head, grinning ear to ear. “Wait, can you...” She trails off and makes a vague gesture with her hand.

Trixie doesn’t say it out loud. 

A moment passes, and then there’s finally a flicker of recognition in Katya’s eyes.

“Oh, lick my own pussy?” She asks like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Yeah, a little. It’s _deeply_ uncomfortable but it keeps me entertained when I get lonely. Which is about five times a day.”

“Wow.” 

Trixie is still beaming, mostly because it feels like an achievement to find out anything about Katya at all. _She rides a bike, she’s staying with a friend in a trailer, she did gymnastics in high school, and she may or may not speak Russian._ Trixie keeps it all like a little hoard of information she should guard with her life.

Katya takes a step towards Trixie, crossing the small distance between them. Up close, Trixie can smell her shampoo on Katya’s hair, and the strange combination of both their scents mixed together. 

“Can I try yours?” She points to Trixie’s coffee.

“Sure.” 

Trixie holds her mug out towards Katya. As she grabs it, their fingers brush up against each other, and Trixie feels stupid for noticing. _This is real life, not a shitty romcom._ Trixie only freezes for moment, but then because she isn’t fucking 15 anymore, and she doesn’t have to be scared, she presses one of her legs forward till just their knees are touching. 

Katya tilts back the cup of coffee. She pauses, then frowns.

“ _Ugh._ Fuck. At least it didn’t make me straight.” She says. “That’s like a milkshake, how do you drink that?”

Katya leans forward to set the cup down, and in the same fluid motion, places her hand on Trixie’s waist. The touch makes the hair on Trixie’s neck stand up. With the way Trixie’s slouching, they seem like the same height, and she watches as Katya’s eyes flick down to her lips.

The expression on Katya’s face is one of hunger.

“Can I fucking kiss you now, or do I have to work a little harder?”

In all her sheltered pathetic 25 years on Earth, Trixie’s never met anyone as forward as this. She’s used to people giving body language. She’s used to talking to a girl for hours, both of them too nervous to just reach out and take what they want. 

It’s all she can do to keep her knees from going out underneath herself.

“I guess.” Trixie means to make it sound casual, but instead it comes out quiet.

Then Katya’s other hand is on her waist. 

In a shocking display of strength, Katya grabs her tight and hoists her up to sit on the edge of the counter. It pulls this stupid high-pitched noise out of Trixie’s throat, and her hands instinctively come to rest on Katya’s shoulders. They both lean in, fast, both part their lips into the kiss, and _fuck_ , Trixie missed the feeling of Katya’s mouth. It’s like they’re in a rush. Katya kisses deliberately and hard, those perfect teeth biting down on Trixie’s tongue for a moment, playful. Trixie draws her nails up the back of Katya’s neck. She can feel the other woman shiver against her, and winds her fingers into Katya’s hair, tugging hard. 

Katya groans into her mouth.

“Why do you still have those fucking straight girl nails?” She asks against her lips, before her mouth migrates to the side of Trixie’s face. 

“I don’t know.”

She feels Katya’s breath hot against her earlobe, and then a sharp kiss against her own neck. The pain of it makes her twitch. It’ll probably leave a mark. _God, I hope it leaves a mark._

Katya shoves Trixie’s legs open further, and slips one of her fingers under the waistband of Trixie’s panties. The only sounds Trixie can hear is her own chest is rising and falling hard, mixed with the slow crawl of midday traffic outside. When she lets go of her grip on Katya’s shoulders, there’s five small crescent-shaped marks in her wake.

“This isn’t fair.” Trixie mumbles it against her shoulder, into her hair.

“What?” 

Katya moves her finger back and forth underneath Trixie’s waistband, painfully slow and teasing. Trixie feels her cheeks grow hot, but the keeps her legs spread, keeps her neck bared for Katya to kiss again.

“You’re so hot and it’s not fair!” She struggles out. 

Katya laughs against her skin. It feels so fucking _warm_ , and before Trixie knows it, the laughs are turning to kisses over her collarbone.

Katya drops to her knees. 

The kitchen tile can’t be all that comfortable but couldn’t be worse than crawling over that horrible scratchy motel carpet had been. Maybe this is payback. Katya doesn’t even seem to fucking notice; her eyes are wide staring up at Trixie as she smooths her hands down Trixie’s legs. The places where Trixie is gripping the edge of the kitchen counter are becoming harder and harder to hold on to underneath her palms.

“I bet you’re already wet, aren’t you?” Katya’s voice is gravelly and low again. 

Trixie groans. 

Slowly, Katya peels back the hem of Trixie’s nightshirt, pushing it up and over the small swell of her stomach. Trixie remembers putting on her ‘maybe I’ll get fucked’ underwear the night before; they’re silk and baby pink, with little patches of lace up either side. Katya pulls her fingers out of Trixie’s waistband and trails down them down, over the soft silk, brushing against Trixie’s clit for a moment. Even that - the faintest of touches - has her sucking in a sharp breath and tensing. 

“It’s like I don’t even have to fucking do anything.” Katya grins.

Trixie’s entire face is flushed. Across her stomach, folded over itself into three little rolls of fat, she’s sweating against her bunched-up shirt, and she feels another wave of heat wash over herself as Katya brings her hands up - steady and sure - to grip either side of her underwear. Trixie exhales, pushes her own hair back out of her face. 

Katya stands up again. 

“How much did you think about me?” She asks.

When Katya pulls Trixie’s panties down over her knees, there’s this obscene string of Trixie’s wetness clinging to the fabric, breaking off and mingling with the sweat on her thighs. If she were any more coherent, she might have the common sense to be embarrassed.

“Almost every night.” She says immediately; honestly.

Katya pulls her panties the rest of the way off her legs. One of her hands comes to tilt Trixie’s chin up, fixing her with a stare that manages to be adoring and wicked all at the same time. 

“Open your mouth.” Katya says.

Trixie does as she’s told. She lets her mouth fall open, and suddenly Katya is shoving the balled-up silk panties between her lips, pressing them in with two fingers past her teeth until she can taste herself on her tongue. _God._ Her eyes flutter shut. She doesn’t think she can stand to look at Katya again with how badly she wants to be touched.

“You’re so fucking filthy.” 

Katya’s hands are smoothing over Trixie’s thighs. 

She creeps her fingers down Trixie’s legs torturously slow, even brushing over Trixie’s labia for a moment, but then it’s gone again. Trixie muffles out a ‘please’ around the panties. It’s barely comprehendable, and Katya ignores it either way. _She’s going to die. She’s absolutely going to die, and it’ll be half naked in her kitchen dripping onto the breakfast counter with Katya between her thighs, and -_

And the phone rings. 

Not Trixie’s phone. Not the house phone. 

It’s an obnoxious ringtone, like static mixed with synth notes.

“Oh fuck, my bad.” Katya hisses.

Trixie snaps her eyes open just as Katya is turning on her heel to leave the room.

She huffs a confused ‘what’ around the panties, reaching up and snatching them out of her own mouth. Katya’s already halfway down the hallway by the time she does. _Really? A fucking phone call is more important than whatever they were about to do?_

There’s a feeling of disappointment, and it’s coupled with a twinge of anger. Trixie doesn’t consider herself the type of girl you walk away from. She shoves her shirt back down over her stomach, smoothing her hair a few times and jumping down from the counter. From the other room, there’s the faint sounds of a conversation, and then a click. Instead of waiting around and looking like a jackass, she decides to step back into her slightly spit-damn panties one leg at a time, her face still flushed and sweaty. She tugs them all the way back over her hips. 

When Katya returns to the room a few minutes later, she has her own clothes on.

“I’m so fucking sorry.” She starts, slinging her jacket on. “I swear this sounds like a bit, but I promised someone I’d - I’m - I’m helping someone move. I owe her a huge fucking favor, I can’t bail, again.”

“It’s fine.” Trixie says in the least-fine tone imaginable.

Katya notices. 

“Hey, hey...” She crosses the distance between them and brings a hand up to the side of Trixie’s warm face. “You know if I had my way I’d be fucking you six ways to sunday right on this goddamn floor.”

Trixie nods. 

She knows she has no right to be acting like a petulant child. It’s a random hookup cut short, not the end of the world. Still, there’s a part of her that wonders if this is one of Katya’s weird powertrips. Maybe she wants to leave Trixie wet and desperate and unsatisfied.

“I really have to go.” Katya says seriously, pulling an apologetic expression. Her thumb strokes against Trixie’s cheek.

“I said it’s fine.” Trixie insists, and just to prove it, turns her head and gives Katya a peck on her hand. “You should write your number on the fridge.”

They have a whiteboard that was initially supposed to be for grocery shopping lists. Lately, her roommate likes to use it to write Trixie passive aggressive notes about how she forgot to take out the trash, or she was watching porn without headphones. 

Katya smiles ear-to-ear. She turns around and grabs the sharpie off it’s little magnetic holder, quickly scribbling out a few numbers, and underneath it, writing ‘Call for a good time’. 

“Okay, give me a call, we’ll meet up, I’ll make you come so hard you forget your fucking name, deal?” Katya asks, as she’s walking backwards towards the door. 

Trixie leans against the counter and crosses her arms. 

She hates it, but she can’t keep herself from smiling.

“Yeah, deal. Now get out of here, please!” 

Trixie rolls her eyes.

“Yes ma’am.” Katya laughs.

The door slams shut. Trixie waits about three seconds before she’s sinking to the kitchen floor and shoving her own manicured hand underneath the silk of her panties. 

_Honestly? She really does need to ditch the nails._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songs to read to:
> 
> once more to see you - mitski  
> everytime boots - julia holter  
> not today - molly burch  
> hang on me - st vincent  
> come what may - daisy o’connor


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You seem to have the weight of the world upon your bony shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter summary is a lyric from I Need A Little Time - Courtney Barnett, which I’ve been listening to a lot this week week. ♥️

“If you ever call me trailer trash again you’ve got another thing coming, because _this_ motherfucker is classy.” 

Katya’s blowing her smoke out through the slats in the blinds. The fan pointed directly at her is keeping her, momentarily, from sweating against the puke-green linoleum of the tiny dining area. Ginger probably just switched on the fan passive aggressively, but Katya’s enjoying the breeze. 

“It’s still a trailer.” Katya says.

“But it’s not trash.” 

It had taken them a total of two days to move everything from Ginger’s old trailer, overgrown with moss and eternally stationary, to the new one. It’s a refurbished airstream with its original chrome finish. Katya isn’t exactly sure why Ginger didn’t just use the twenty grand to put a down payment on a house, but maybe some people really like shitting into a tank that they have to clean out a week later. She isn’t about to question that. 

Out of all the people that have tried to ‘be there’ for Katya since … since what happened, Ginger has done the best job. And it’s a job that ain’t easy; doesn’t even pay well. Katya still remembers that when she’d first rocked up on Ginger’s doorstep she’d been sick with a fever for two days from driving without taking breaks to eat, or sleep, or any of the other stuff humans were supposed to do for themselves. And instead of asking her what was wrong _(everything)_ , or even what she could do to help _(nothing)_ , she’d just told Katya, “You look like shit.” and given her a bed to sleep in.

Katya ashes her cigarette out the window. 

Ginger’s keeping herself busy making a pot of coffee at 4 PM and simultaneously unpacking all her cheesy vintage dishwares from heavily-padded boxes. She’d given Katya a hard time about tossing them into her truck bed way too aggressively. When they bicker, it’s like two old married bitches going in circles just for fun. Katya always lets Ginger win the arguments eventually because she probably deserves it. All the things she’s had to put up with in the past month that Katya’s been sleeping on her couch - it’s not something Katya’s ever going to be able to properly make up to her.

“Why are you being so fuckin’ moody?” Ginger asks.

Katya realizes she’s been doing a pensive stare for a solid five minutes. _Shit._

“Early menopause.” Katya shrugs. 

She takes another drag off her dying cigarette and then pushes it through the little crack at the bottom of the window. The percolator sitting on the stovetop finally stops it’s gurgling noise, indicating a fresh pot of coffee, and Ginger switches off the burner.

“You had me until you said early, cryptkeeper.” 

It doesn’t earn a full laugh, but the corners of Katya’s mouth do tug up into a smile.

She’s hung up and it’s fucking awful. In fact, she hasn’t been this hung up in what feels like a decade. The first time she’d met Trixie it was just good old fashioned fun. _That was her plan, right? Fuck sluts, see the states, run away from your impending emotional breakdown?_ The second time, though - that had been wearing on her. She remembers the way Trixie’s eyes bugged out when her own fucking panties were being pushed into her mouth, and she also remembers how it felt waking up underneath her ridiculous pink comforter and smelling her hair product on the pillow. 

“Is this about the blonde with the fat ass?” Ginger asks.

Her voice is dripping with judgement as she pours out two coffees.

“She’s more than just a blonde with a fat ass.” Katya says defensively. “She’s also got these - _ugh_ \- just honestly massive tits like you wouldn’t believe. And don’t even get me started on that pussy. If I finished college I know exactly what my dissertation would’ve been on. Jesus.” 

It’s been three days since she wrote her number on Trixie’s fridge and she still hasn’t heard anything. Not a text, not a missed call. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem. She’s had more than her fair share of one night stands and never a huge inclination to keep in touch after. _So what the fuck is different now?_. It’s like her phone is burning a hole in her pocket. The distraction is welcome, sure, but what might be more welcome would be for it to actually ring. 

“It’s nice to think about stuff like this.” Katya says.

Her voice has just a twinge of sobriety.

“What do you mean?”

Gingers lighting up her own cigarette and washing the taste down with coffee. As they were moving, she’d insisted they were only smoking indoors for one day, to christen the trailer. It’s a nice thought. Katya knows come sundown Ginger will have curlers in her hair and be sitting pretty chainsmoking in her joke of a master bedroom.

“Shit that doesn’t matter.” Katya replies. “A girl won’t call me back, who gives a fuck? Some people would kill for a problem like that.” 

In fact, Katya herself would kill for that to be her biggest problem. It’s not, not by a long shot, but it’s fun to dance with the feeling of petty rejection. 

She pushes herself up out of the seat and strides over the small distance to the kitchen where her own cup of coffee awaits. She’s in that ultra especially shitty kind of mood where all she can think about is her next cigarette, and how many shots it would take to pass out. _Probably five._ She’d been seven shots deep when she bumped into Trixie.

“Well if you’re gonna sulk all day I might as well put you to work. Ever serviced a generator?”

Ginger’s good at this. Keeping Katya occupied when it’s obvious she’s ready to bolt. 

“I’m gay, you cunt, of course I have.” Katya says.

She’s mildly excited to work with her hands. Her last resort before hitting the bars is usually to check all the fluids on her Harley and polish the metal, give her a little kiss if she’s feeling frisky. 

Hilariously enough, an hour later when she’s got motor oil up to her elbows and has long since sweated through the thin fabric of her tank top, all she can feel - _all she can even goddamn think about_ \- is Trixie’s horrible excuse for a laugh, and when she might be able to hear it again.  


~

  
It’s Thursday, eighty-six degrees, and Katya’s earphones are barely drowning out the sound of her bike. Sometimes when a certain song comes on shuffle the beat will mingle with the thrumming of the motor, and those songs always sound the best. It feels like summer, but it’s definitely spring. She’s not used to spending springtime outside of inner city Boston, where springtime just means all the sidewalks smell like wet hot garbage, and everyone’s seasonal depression wears off enough to make them want to go out and get drunk on weekdays. Now she gets to see all the little stuff that she’s been missing. The first patches of grass breaking through the beds of old dead leaves, and the way animals tentatively begin hang out by the side of the rural highways.

Going into town from Ginger’s place is a good thirty minute ride. Katya’s got it memorized to the point where she’s sure she could do it blindfolded. In exchange for temporary housing, she’s taken up the responsibility of making the journey with a poorly-scribbled grocery list and breaking one of the hundreds she kept rolled up in her backpack. It’s a small price to pay.

Just past the _Welcome To Saloma_ marker, and about eight minutes before the supermarket, she drives past this gaudy looking diner with a dingy mint-green exterior. The sign posted high above the roof reads _Dela’s Diner_ in big cursive pink letters. She’s driven past it a few times before and it’s never really caught her eye, but now there’s something about the combination of colors that’s annoyingly familiar. Seeing as there’s no car up her ass, she slows her bike down to about five miles below the speed limit and takes a longer look. 

Dela’s Diner. 

_Maybe Ginger complained about it once? Or she ate there when she was drunk and forgot? Or -_

Then, like she’s tapping in to her fucking lesbian ESP or something, she remembers. 

While she was rooting through Trixie’s closet that morning looking for something to wear, she’d found an ugly-as-sin sixties-style work uniform in that same pink, with that same awful mint-green trim, with a little clip-on name tag that said Trixie in all capitals right under the logo. She remembers because she’d pictured Trixie having to wear that shit while waiting tables and tucked it into her mental spank bank, and it was a uniform for _this fucking restaurant._

Dela’s goddam Diner.

She’s pulling into the parking lot before she’s even made the conscious decision to go inside.

For a moment there she’d even tried to calculate how creepy it would be to knock on Trixie’s door sometime. She knew the apartment number. It would be easy, but then she actually ran the scenario through her head; theoretically, what she might say. _Hi, I know you didn’t call when I left my number, but I’d really like to finish eating you out._ Super fucking creepy. 

Showing up at her work doesn’t seem half as bad. It’s even on her normal route. 

She parks her bike in between two pickups. Her hair has been pressed down by her helmet, and she ruffles it with her fingertips a few times. The feeling of being nervous is so fucking foreign she’s worried, for a second, that she might let on just how much she’s thought about this. Trixie not calling her. She wouldn’t be able to explain that it isn’t a big deal, that it’s a good distraction, that she doesn’t mind the not knowing. 

She hops off her bike and makes her way inside.

As she passes through the glass doors, a bell clacks around over her head, and she hears a chipper voice yell “Sit anywhere!” from somewhere within the kitchen. The interior is pretty much what she had expected. Tacky red booths, linoleum floors, a section near the back with lottery machines and a jukebox. Katya decides to sidle up next to a few other sad old fucks sitting at the stools drinking coffee. It’s sleepy. Nobody seems to be too eager to ask what she wants to order. In fact, the only waiter in sight is a some guy who’s wearing the equivalent of the pink dress getup but in bowler-shirt form, and looks like he wants to fucking kill himself. 

One of the old men at the very end of the counter shoves an empty coffee pot towards the direction of the kitchen. He clears his throat. 

“Can you get that girl to bring me more coffee?” 

In the kitchen, there’s one person manning everything. Or, womaning everything. Whatever. She’s got her hair pulled back into a jet-black ponytail and huge orange bakelite earrings that droop down close to her shoulders. Katya almost digs it.

“Which one?” Her voice is bright as she tugs one of the baskets of fries out of a vat of hot oil, pours them out into a metal bowl. 

The nametag on her chef’s apron just says ‘Dela’. As in _the_ Dela. It makes sense, somehow, that the owner of this joint would look like the star of _Horny Retro Milfs Gone Wild._

“The little blonde girl.”

Katya frowns at the way he says it. Like she’s on the fucking menu or something. She assumes it’s about Trixie, because of course it’s about Trixie. Because of course as soon as Dela starts insisting that she can grab the coffee in _just a moment_ , that same old hourglass cinched into a pink uniform is rounding the corner, hair piled on top of her head like she’d somehow grown even more of it in the week since Katya last saw her.

“It’s fine, I got it.” Trixie huffs, snatching the pot of coffee off the counter. “But you seriously need to stop being gross.” She adds pointedly to the man sitting in the chair, who just laughs and pulls out a few ones to set on the table as a tip.

_Yeah, you’d better tip, you impotent motherfucker._

Trixie fills the coffee pot to the brim. She has a few bracelets on her arm that jingle whenever she reaches for things, and Katya finds it so incredibly cute.

“Yeah, could I get a coffee too?” Katya calls. “Just whenever you get a moment.”

Trixie’s head snaps up, and her hair bobs comically as she does.

Katya fixes her with a smile.

“ _Oh my god._ ” Trixie’s practically throwing the coffee pot down on the table, shoes tapping loudly as she rushes over to Katya’s end of the counter. Katya really isn’t sure what she was expecting. Maybe an excuse, or less hopefully, a blow-off. But instead, Trixie reaches forward hastily and grabs one of Katya’s hands. “Please, please, please don’t hate me.” Her eyes are wide, and beautiful. “My fucking _slut_ of a roommate - ” Trixie glances around the diner, like she hopes someone is in earshot “ - erased the whiteboard before I wrote your number down. I _swear_.”

Katya’s still staring at her hair. Trixie’s hand is warm against her own.

“How many fucking bump-its do you have on your head right now?” She asks.

Trixie’s mouth tugs into a smile, she shakes her head.

“Oh my god, I’m so happy you’re here. I thought I blew it.” Trixie lets go of Katya’s hand and reaches up to untie her own apron. She tosses it down on the counter, and calls out over her shoulder “Dela, I’m taking my break!”

Trixie rounds the counter sits herself down on the stool next to Katya. 

This is … this is _definitely_ the best-case scenario. Katya’s not really sure what to do with that. _Must be the calm before the bullshit._

“She really erased it?” 

Trixie nods.

“Damn. You know what - ” She leans in, drops her voice to a whisper. “- you know what this is? She’s a fucking homophobe. A goddamn dyke-hater. She’s trying to _pussyblock_ you.”

“Probably.” Trixie agrees.

She has a bit of glitter on her eyelids, where rosy eyeshadow fades into a thick black wing over full lashes. She’s matched her lipstick to the uniform. Pale pink. If Katya thinks she could swing it without getting kicked out, she would be spreading Trixie out over the counter, like, yesterday.

_“Ugh_. And here I thought you were just playing hard to get.”

Trixie smiles and shakes her head. 

“No, not at all. I’m super easy.”

Katya snorts.

“Well I know that, you cheap bitch.” She reaches forward and flicks one of Trixie’s perfect ringlets, watching it bounce stiff with hairspray. 

“How did you know where I worked?” Trixie asks.

“You mentioned.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah.” Katya doesn’t want to take the time to explain that she’d remembered a nametag on a uniform in her room that she saw once. That’s stalker behavior.

“Oh. Cool.” Trixie doesn't inquire further, and Katya’s thankful for that.

Trixie’s arms are drawn around herself, full and soft. Her fingernails, gripping at the skin, are painted the same color as her lips, but short this time. Really short. Katya pokes at her hand.

“That’s fucking heartwarming.”

Trixie looks confused for a moment, and then looks down at her fingernails. She smiles and wiggles them.

“Oh, you like it?” She asks. She holds her hand out towards Katya, and instinctively, Katya grabs it. 

She brings Trixie’s hand up to her own mouth and presses a quick kiss to her knuckles. 

“All the better to finger yourself with, my dear.” Katya puts on one of her gaudy voices that she knows Trixie, like most people, fucking hate. She always gets a kick out of seeing the reaction.

Katya can’t believe she’s acting like this - like a _teenager_ \- around some woman she’s fucked a total of one-point-five times. Even when Katya’s with Ginger, her mind is always halfway gone, thinking about Boston. Thinking about the tattoo on her chest. Thinking about all of it. When she’s with Trixie, she can’t be fucked to remember. All she can even pay attention to is the natural blush creeping into Trixie’s face underneath the blush she already has on, and how big and brown her eyes are.

“How seriously does the bitch in the kitchen take this place?” Katya asks Trixie, finally letting go of her hand.

“Who, Dela?” Trixie asks. “She’s pretty whatever about it.”

“Great! So you can call out sick.” 

Sure, it would be easy for Katya to just leave her number again, somewhere nobody could wipe it away, and meet up with Trixie when she’s free. But that sounds _exhausting._ She’s trying to live in the moment, and Katya personally feels that each hour of her time is worth about seven dollars and twenty five cents anyways.

“Right now?” Trixie sounds incredulous.

“Yes, right now.”

Katya herself should be on her way to fulfill her various servitudes to Ginger, and not trying to get a waitress to give a huge middle finger to her job. Then again, she’s always getting an earful of how she should shut up about her problems and get laid. Getting laid never solved her problems before, but she’ll be damned if she’s not willing to give it yet another try.

“I mean, she’s right there. She knows I’m not sick.” Trixie says.

Katya thinks about it for a second. 

Then, lightbulb.

“Pretend I’m here telling you that your grandma died or some shit.”

Trixie seems to turn the idea over in her mind, considering all the different ways it could be executed. Katya likes to think of herself as someone who gives ‘bearer of bad news’ energy.

“You know, I did do theater in highschool.” Trixie says finally, “I could probably fake crying.” 

Katya thinks that sounds like an _amazing_ fucking idea. 

She reaches out and touches Trixie’s thigh, her voice dropping low.

“If you fake cry, I promise, I’ll make it worth your while.” She says.

In front of her, Trixie glances down to the place where Katya’s hand is resting on her skin. She doesn’t say anything. They can both hear Dela in the background shuffling around in the kitchen, mixed in with the sparse diner patrons talking amongst themselves. The moment is lengthy, even a bit awkward, with Trixie’s hair covering up half her face. Then Katya watches as her shoulders draw up, and she sniffles. 

When Trixie lifts her chin, _God fucking bless her_ , there’s two small pools of liquid brimming up in those beautiful chocolate-brown eyes.

“We were just really close.” She whispers, with this fake-hurt tremble that even Katya can’t clock. 

_Yeah, that’s what petty grief looks like._

Five minutes later Trixie is walking out of the diner clinging to Katya’s arm, and stifling a laugh against her shoulder.  


~

  
Roughly a week after Katya had started living with Ginger, she’d been given a list of places she should visit before she inevitably abandoned Saloma. A few food trucks, bars, landmarks. Simple stuff. It was probably less out of the good nature of her heart, and more a desperate attempt to get Katya to leave the trailer more often. It was during this period of time that Katya was still in her ‘breaking into crying fits at random hours of the day’ phase.

Even by her standards, it was a huge bummer. 

Thinking back, it’s impressive that she hadn’t broken down in front of Trixie at any point during their first encounter. That simple 12 hours they had; there was so many ways it could’ve gone south. Concealing her emotions was part of what had encouraged her to sneak out at 7 AM to find food. The alley behind a motel is a great place to smoke and claw at your own stupid wet fucking face. Lamenting what has been, and what can never be.

In amongst the recommendations Ginger gave her, there were directions to a watering hole that was, apparently _so goddamn off-road_ that once you got there, you were free to strip naked and shotgun beers and light fireworks. Something like that. The way Ginger described it sounded very grand.

They’d stopped at a gas station on the way over to fill Katya’s tank. Trixie had gone inside to buy herself some gum, and Katya had given her a twenty to use, told her to get some water and snacks as well. _There aren’t diners where we’re going_. 

The cashier at the gas station had come out to stand in the doorframe afterwards, and ask if they were sisters, to which Katya gleefully responded “Yes!” before smacking Trixie’s ass and hauling her back onto the bike.

_South, just past mile marker 24, and to the left._

Those were the directions she’d been mentally repeating as she drove with Trixie clinging to her back. 

The first time they’d rode together, she remembered how hesitant Trixie had been to touch her. The way she’d put distance between them and held onto Katya stiffly. It’s different now. Trixie’s hands trail up and down her stomach gently as they pass by all the different farm houses and wheat fields; overgrown barns caving in on themselves. It feels good, but also unfamiliar, like Katya’s peeking into a world to which she doesn’t quite belong.

Twenty minutes later, past mile marker 24, she’s pulling off onto a dirt road. 

It winds for half a mile, and then suddenly into a makeshift parking lot that looks like it hasn’t been used in a hot minute. As Ginger had promised, there’s no cars. Nothing in sight but a beat-down and weather-worn sign reading _Katanga Falls_ tucked into the rapidly growing weeds. The sun is relentless and water sounds like _heaven._

Katya cuts the engine and pulls her helmet off. 

“Jesus fucking Christ.” She pants, clipping it to the handle of her bike. Her hair is so slicked with sweat it probably looks like she took a shower, but that’s _not_ something that she’s gonna’ apologize for.

“Hot?” Trixie asks, from where she’s still sitting atop the bike, her own perfect hair barely tousled by the wind. Her legs are splayed open and even though she’s maintained her composure, Katya can see where she’s popped the first few buttons on her uniform to get a little more air.

“Aren’t you?” Katya asks.

She extends a hand to Trixie and helps her climb off the bike one foot at a time. So far Trixie seems to be really into the chivalry shit, and Katya doesn’t have a problem keeping it up. It’s worth it, the way Trixie stumbles when she reaches the ground as an excuse to stand a few inches closer.

“Not for long, I guess.” Trixie nods towards the sign. “But you kinda’ fucked me over not telling me where we were going.”

“Why’s that?” Katya asks.

Trixie points to her shoes. 

Honestly, Katya fails to see how _she_ of all people should’ve had that kind of foresight. What woman in their right goddamn mind wears heels to a waitressing shift? They’re not pumps, just mules with a strap, but still less than ideal to walk through the underbrush.

“Oh my god.” Katya rolls her eyes. Thinks for a moment, then says, “Come on, kick em’ off.”

Trixie looks like she’s about to protest. Then, cautiously, toes off each heel until she’s standing on the dusty ground. Her painted toenails flex about in the dirt. 

Katya turns around so that she’s facing away from Trixie, grabs her wrists, and pulls them up to rest on her own shoulders. 

“Hop on.” Katya says.

Trixie scoffs.

“You’re not seriously gonna’ carry me.”

Katya frowns at her.

“Have you not seen these fucking arms, mama?” She curls her hand into a fist, and flexes. “I’m seriously carrying you, so jump, bitch.”

She hears Trixie sigh, and then there’s blunt fingernails digging into her shoulders. Katya tenses as Trixie hoists herself up onto Katya’s back. No, she’s not featherweight, but Katya’s been doing push-ups since the fucking tenth grade for exactly this reason. She’s fucked girls up against a wall who were heavier than Trixie. She’ll live.

Trixie’s legs wrap around her hips and Katya stumbles forward a few inches.

“Don’t drop me.” Trixie complains against her neck.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Katya replies.

Her voice only sounds a little strained.  


~

  
The waterfall is a lot smaller than Ginger had made it out to be. It’s more like rapids that rush down sharply into a massive pool of freshwater. The rock shelves around the spring are smooth; smooth enough that Trixie can walk on them with her delicate little bare feet. Katya lets go of Trixie’s thighs one at a time and sets her down gently onto the ground.

Then like an old hag, she leans forward to place both her hands on her knees.

“God I need to quit smoking.” She breathes. 

Her voice is coming out embarrassingly ragged. It’s not like she’s out of shape, she’s just not in the kind of shape the used to be. _Not in the ‘carry 150 pounds of tits and ass through the woods’ kind of shape._

She looks over at Trixie. The girl’s got this adorable smile plastered on her face like she’s at Disneyland.

“Not bad, right?” Katya asks. 

“This is really beautiful.” Trixie says softly.

Katya watches as she shuffles forward, careful not to step on any stray sticks or rocks. The sunlight is hitting the trees in such a way that her face keeps flickering in and out of the light. Shifting. Trixie stops at the edge of the water and raises one of her feet to tap her big toe against the surface, sending ripples out in every direction, that eventually disappear into the various currents. 

She moves like she’s seeing it all for the first time. 

When Trixie turns around to look at Katya, her hands are at her chest unfastening the remainder of the buttons on her uniform. 

“So we’re getting in?” Trixie asks.

Katya realizes she’s been staring. Apparently her response to feeling genuinely one-hundred-percent good for the first time in half a year is to just freeze, which probably isn’t the way to go when you’re trying to impress a girl. Maybe it’s her body’s form of shock. Like saying, _hey, things are going well, but you’re not drunk, maybe you’re having a stroke?_

Underneath her uniform Trixie’s wearing a pale white bra, all lace, that barely holds in her tits. 

“Oh yeah, after you.” Katya grins.

She lets her own leather jacket fall to the ground; lays it out delicately, like it’s a picnic blanket. Trixie undoes the last of her buttons and shimmies out of her dress, balling it up and throwing it onto the growing pile of clothing. As Trixie removes her bra, Katya notices that in its wake are deep pink lines pressed into her skin, imprints of lace and elastic.

Katya sheds her own clothes like they’re about to be set on fire. 

The late-day sun makes Trixie - a few steps ahead, and entirely naked now - seem lambent, or surreal. Katya steps out of her underwear and makes her way over to stand near Trixie at the edge of the water. There’s a wind picking up, and the feeling of it rolls across every inch of Katya’s skin. 

Trixie gently places one foot in the water, followed by the other.

“It’s so cold.”

The water is clear enough that Katya can see around the shores where it’s shallow and pebble-filled, and then not far after, where it drops off into darkness.

“If you don’t get in, I’ll just fuckin’ push ya’.” Katya teases, before lifting her arms up above her own head, and taking a running start. 

She shoves off the edge of the rock-bed and dives in fingertips-first. It rushes up around her shoulders, and when she eventually opens her eyes underwater, she can see all the deep greens and blues several feet below, out of focus and wavering.

Trixie - as she suspected - was being dramatic. It feels _amazing._

When Katya finally surfaces, she has her mouth open in a grin. She spits out a small amount of probably-scum-filled water and shoves her own wet hair out of her eyes. “Your nerve endings must be fried, this isn’t even bad!” She calls, treading water where her feet won’t touch the bottom.

Trixie wades in a few more paces until she’s up to her knees. Katya swims over, finds her footing in the shallows, stepping slowly to avoid all the rocks that look sharp underneath the surface. She reaches out to grab Trixie by the hand. 

“ _Don’t_ \- don’t pull me.” Trixie warns. 

Katya smiles. She lets go and instead, reaches to place both hands on Trixie’s waist.

“You think so low of me.” 

It’s ridiculous that Trixie is a real person. 

Half of the time she looks like a cartoon someone asked a genie to bring to life, and he other half of the time, Katya suspects that Trixie was the product of a Weird Science scenario. If two horny-yet-intelligent lesbians were going to craft up the perfect woman, it would have her tits. Her beautiful hips, adorned with stretch-marks, freckles, and a small scar that Katya’s been meaning to ask about. Even her stupid 60’s over-the-top Barbie hair. Hair that she’s currently tying up into a fluffy bun using an elastic she pulled from her wrist.

Trixie takes one step closer. 

The water is up to their knees now, and Katya’s body is wet as they press together, cold seeking warmth. The height difference is so great that Katya’s pubic hair is pressing into Trixie’s upper thigh, and she tilts her head to make eye contact.

“What?” Trixie asks, regarding the dumb look on Katya’s face. 

“Just thinking about you, beautiful.” Katya leans forward and drops a kiss to Trixie’s shoulder, the place where her collar bone pokes out.

“What about me?” 

Katya wishes she were kidding but she absolutely isn’t.

“I guess I’m just thinking … “ Her fingers grip Trixie’s waist tighter and she cranes her neck until they bump noses. They’re so close Katya can even feel her bottom lip brush over Trixie’s own mouth. Trixie grabs her back - hands on Katya’s shoulders, like they’re about to slow dance - which is what she was waiting for. “... about how much you’re gonna fucking hate me.”

That’s all the warning she gives before she spins Trixie around and shoves her into the water.  


~

  


**Boston, 6 Months Earlier.**

  
“Is this all just a really sad desperate attempt to get me to fuck you?”

If Katya had a single shred of common sense inside her crusty deteriorating brain, she would’ve just called a friend. She has a few of those, and definitely wouldn’t consider Violet one of them. More like a total bitch that Katya occasionally pays to stick needles into her body, but right now she feels like Katya’s saving grace. 

Violet’s changing out one of her ink cartridges, eyebrows knit with determination. 

Instead of her usual updo she’s sporting long black hair pulled into a tight ponytail.

“If I wanted to fuck you all I’d have to do is ask.” Katya says.

The tone of her own voice surprises her. How easy and unstrained it sounds; how collected. It could be due to her supreme improvisational acting skills, or the two knockoff xanax she’d taken at home, and the joint she’d smoked on the way over. _Combination of all three?_

“You do have pretty nice tits.” Violet mumbles. 

Something within the tattoo gun clicks into place, and it whirrs once.

There’s a small curtain that’s been drawn around Violet’s little cubicle for situations like this. Katya’s t-shirt is crumpled on the floor, because sadly enough, she’s getting to the point in her life where she’s begun running out of spaces for new ink. It seems fitting, though, to get this one close to her heart. Even if ‘close to her heart’ means directly on the side of her tit.

“What does this say, anyways? Is it Russian for Ciabatta?” 

Violet points to the stencil; abstract shapes that Katya recognizes as letters. 

“It’s a name.” 

Katya also went here because she knows if she doesn’t want to fucking talk about something, nobody will make her talk. Violet’s good at keeping it fast and greasy like that. Hilariously enough, after their last session Katya had promised that the next time she came in, she’d take Violet out for a drink after. _Like that’s gonna’ fucking happen now._

It’s freezing outside. There’s snow crusted on the edges of every downtown sidewalk, and lucky Chachki gets to play with her absolute ice sculpture of a body. She’d walked over without so much as a jacket. Maybe she’ll even catch a cold.

Violet spins around on her stool and shuffles over. She’s wearing this dramatically impractical bondage harness over a deep blue turtleneck, a pencil skirt and sharp black heels adorning her lower half. If this were any other session, Katya would be relentlessly hitting on her, only stopping when she eventually got a hard pinch to the nipple in return. 

The cubicle is quiet as Violet presses her gloved hand to the side of Katya’s breast.

“You know the drill, bug me if you need anything.” Violet says. 

Immediately after Violet starts up the motor, Katya feels the sharp burn of the tattoo gun. The way it drags down her skin. There was no countdown - they’re a little past that. The placement is tender and sends sparks of pain shooting through her chest, but the feeling of it isn’t all that bad. Much worse was getting her rib done, and above that, her ankle. The chair begins to squeak in the places where she’s gripping it. 

She regrets not bringing her mp3 player. It was a conscious decision. Lately the songs that come up on shuffle seem cruel and unusual, so she’s been avoiding music. _How sad is that? Avoiding music._ Avoidance is really all she has right now. Even the late night phone conversations with Ginger, who’s long since taken up living in the middle of God-knows-where Wisconsin, and long rides up and down the freeway all by her lonesome, haven’t helped. Not even a little. Not even when she tries really hard to let them.

In an instant, the pain is gone.

Katya blinks, and it sends two sets of tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Are you okay?” 

_Shit, shit, shit._

This is _so_ goddamn embarrassing.

Frantically Katya paws away the streaks down her face with her free hand.

“Sorry, fuck, sorry.” She shakes her head and gives a half-hearted smile that Violet isn’t buying. “Guess it’s been a while since my last… you know, I forgot how much it can hurt.”

The tears she’s crying are clearly not tears of pain. Not physical pain. 

She’s really hoping that Violet’s gonna call her a pussy and start the gun again. Or even kick her out. _Oh, kicking her out would be great._ They could try again a different day and Katya would smoke two joints on the way over instead of just one.

“If you need to talk about something...“ Violet seems to be unsure what to do with her hand for a second. It’s still covering Katya’s nipple, but she removes it, and gives Katya this awkward robotic pat on the shoulder. 

“Oh yeah, because you’re such a good fucking listener.” 

She wants this whole interaction to be over.

“I can be.” Violet scoffs. “What am I supposed to do, ignore you while you get your drugstore mascara all over my chair?”

Katya smiles. She smiles because out of all the responses she’s gotten to her touchy-feely-feelings, that’s the best. 

She takes a deep breath.

Then another.

“I have suffered a _loss_.” She says slowly, even with a bit of her good old dramatic flare. “And I wanna sit here, and not talk about it, and get this over with, so I can leave and feel like shit in the privacy of my own home.”

“Sounds healthy.” Violet nods.

“Totally. My therapist told me I needed to get out of my comfort zone and I’m very uncomfortable around you.”

“Aw.” Violet presses a hand to her own chest. “I can’t wait till your withered body runs out of skin and I don’t have to see you in here anymore.”

Katya laughs genuinely once, and gulps in a breath of air.

“Can’t be long now.” 

Once more, Violet starts up the gun. 

Katya lets her eyes fall shut. 

Now that she thinks about it, the drink doesn’t sound half bad.  


~

  
Against her stomach, Trixie’s head of hair bobs up and down every time Katya sucks in a breath of air. It’s damp from the water, but as it dries, it spirals into new waves and curls, a little less dramatic than they had been before. After Katya pushed her in, Trixie had been _outraged._ For a second Katya was worried she’d gone too far and fucked up their time together; _How childish would that be?_ But it didn’t take much to get Trixie laughing, and then swimming, and then resting with her legs wrapped around Katya’s waist as they stood in the shallow end and kissed.

Katya reaches down and runs her fingers along the shape of Trixie’s cheek. It curves softly, the skin warm to the touch. 

“You wanna know something sad?” 

Trixie’s voice comes out rough at first. They’ve been silent for a while.

“What?” Katya asks.

“I’ve never been on a date with a girl before.”

It is pretty sad. Even in Katya’s grand scheme of sadness.

“Oh, you think this is a date?’ Katya lifts her head. “I’m here to help you refinance your mortgage.”

Trixie laughs, her body shaking as she does, one of her hands thrown over her eyes to shield herself from the sun. Light bounces wildly off her short glittery nails.

“Fuck, I’ve been meaning to get around to that.” She sighs.

Katya isn’t one-hundred percent sure what happened in poor little Trixie’s life to make her so alluring and inexperienced at the same time, although she has a good idea. Midwestern isolation, internalized homophobia, and a few stolen skin mags. 

If there was ever a bitch out there to give a girl a damn good first-date-ever, Katya likes to think it would be her.

“How’s it going so far?” Katya asks.

She walks her fingers over Trixie’s collarbone, down her shoulder.

“Pretty good.” Trixie nods. “But I’m kind of realizing that I literally don’t know anything about you.”

_Oh. This was a long time coming._

Katya’s face falls a little. She genuinely has nothing to say about herself; nothing that Trixie wants to hear about anyways. It’s all part of the shitshow that has been her past six months, and before that, just abstract bad decisions and commitment issues. And yes, she’s probably selling herself a little short, but that’s how it goes.

“What do you want to know?” Katya asks.

Trixie thinks about it for a moment.

“Do you actually speak Russian?” 

_Yes, I can answer that one._

“Yeah, I’m second generation.” Katya says honestly. “My full name is Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchivoka.”

She makes sure to put the accent on heavy, and grins when Trixie whips her head up and blinks at her a few times.

“That’s a fucking nightmare.” Trixie says.

“ _Trakhat' tebya!_ ” Katya nudges her, “In Russia it’s actually considered boring. I’m basically named Katie.”

Trixie nods and sits up from where she’s been resting against Katya. Her hair cascades down her shoulders messy and unkempt. She’s just in her underwear, since they hadn’t brought towels and have spent the past twenty minutes drying themselves in the sun. Katya herself decided to fuck the underwear altogether. _When amongst nature, be natural._

“What does the thing on your boob mean?” 

Trixie gestures to her chest. Katya feels a swell of anxiety, but doesn’t let it reach her face.

“It’s how you spell Svetlana.”

Trixie is absently braiding a small section of her hair, letting it twist and unfurl. Her delicate little fingers pause, tangled around three separate locks.

“Is that your ex?” Trixie asks.

_Okay, steering the conversation in a different direction. Crashing the goddamn car if she has to._

“Yeah.” She lies through her teeth. “Frigid bitch. Super hot.”

Katya reaches forward and grabs onto Trixie’s waist, tugging her close. It’s a sudden movement. Trixie giggles a little as she does it, and her braid untangles as her hands come down to grip Katya by the shoulders.

“Nothing compared to you though.” 

Katya loves flattering Trixie because she’s built to be flattered. Always makes the same face, lets her cheeks turn red, and looks down like she’s shy, even though she fully fucking isn’t.

“I get that a lot.” Trixie says.

Slowly, Katya feels Trixie crawl over her body. She settles herself against Katya’s pelvis, straddling her, and Katya traces her finger along the creases where Trixie’s hips fold over her thighs. 

“You know, I really admire the way you bounce between self-deprecation and narcissism. Gives me a tingle.” Katya says.

Trixie shrugs.

“Oh yeah, It’s one of my, like - “ Trixie counts on her fingers, “ - three talents.”

Katya reaches up and grabs Trixie’s hand, using it to tug her all the way down. The sunlight is starting to warm them again, but it’s pleasant; calm in the evening. She blinks as Trixie’s hair brushes over her own shoulders. Katya rolls her hips up once, and watches the way Trixie rocks forward involuntarily. The way her mouth falls open.

“Kiss me.” 

Katya doesn’t ask, and Trixie doesn’t hesitate.

She tastes like cherries and pond water. Weird combination, but Katya’s starving for it. She reaches both of her hands up to tangle in Trixie’s hair and hold her head in place as she licks across her lips - those soft, beautiful lips - and inside her mouth. They kiss, and kiss, until Katya has to shove her away for a moment to draw in a breath. Trixie’s mouth is slick with spit and puffy, but she’s sporting this stupid smile. Katya smiles too. _How can she fucking not?_

“I feel really bad for leaving you hanging the other day.” Katya says slowly, rolling her hips up against Trixie one more time. She feels the soft cotton of Trixie’s underwear rub against her, just enough for a bit of friction.

“It was kind of messed up.” Trixie breathes, hesitates, then adds, “You weren’t even two feet out the door and I was fucking fingering myself.” 

Katya can picture it; Trixie on the floor with her hand shoved between her legs. 

She hauls her forward by the hips.

“I’ll have to make it up to you.” Katya insists.

This is good, and safe, because Katya doesn’t have to think too hard about sex. She knows how to please effortlessly, and it’s a double-pleasure when Trixie is the one above her, or underneath her.

Katya sits up, holding Trixie in her lap as she does, and leans forward to drop a gentle kiss to her collarbone.

“But you have to be good.” She adds. Her fingers dig into Trixie’s skin harder. “And do everything I say.”

Just like she hoped they would, the words make Trixie shiver. Even with the sun beating down on her back. Even as the places where their thighs touch grow warm with sweat. 

“Okay.” Trixie says.

She shifts forward just an inch more, wraps her arms around Katya’s shoulders. She’s intoxicating, but Katya’s not about to be tripped up. She kisses Trixie again, and bites down on her lip until she hears her whimper softly. When she lets go, there’s a small red mark blooming.

Katya pushes Trixie forward, onto her back. 

They’ve been laying on a combination of Katya’s jacket, Katya’s pants, and Trixie’s work uniform to shield them from the grass and the dirt. Together they all form one fully functional blanket. Black leather pillows Trixie’s head as Katya lays her down, drags her hands over the soft squishy skin of her stomach.

“I wasn’t the first girl who fucked you.” 

It’s half a question, but Katya already has a feeling that the way Trixie eats pussy isn’t just beginners luck.

“No.” Trixie answers.

Katya grabs Trixie’s underwear at the waistband and tugs them roughly over her knees. She lifts her feet to kick them off. Once Katya throws them to the side, she takes a moment to take in the sight of Trixie, bathed in the sun, legs spread. 

“Who did?” 

Trixie’s already dripping onto her thighs. They’re about as shiny as her stubby little manicure. As much as Katya wants to lean forward and just _lick, lick, lick,_ she resists, sitting back on her heels.

“A girl in highschool.” Trixie says, but Katya gestures for her to keep talking. She takes a deep breath, exhales. “She was - we didn’t even really know each other that well. We just had classes together.”

Katya traces her fingers along Trixie’s legs, down her inner thighs, but stops just a few inches south of the only place Trixie actually wants to be touched.

“Senior year she would drive me to the bus stop on Fridays because she had a car, and one time she… she pulled off the side of the road and ate me out in the backseat.” Trixie continues.

Katya brings one of her fingers to press between Trixie’s labia, pink and swollen. She makes this adorable _ah_ sound, and when Katya pulls her finger back, it’s slick. She sucks it between her own lips, and Trixie’s thighs flush a beautiful blush color.

“How did it feel?” Katya mumbles around the tip of her finger.

It’s obvious in the way her thighs are trembling, just ever so slightly, that Trixie wants hands on her. 

“Her mouth was really warm.” Trixie starts. “She - she’d never done it before. She put her tongue in me so deep I leaned my head back and it hit the window really hard.”

Katya smiles, and brushes her hand down her own stomach, over the small happy trail that begins at her bellybutton and ends at the top of her pelvis. The sight of Trixie all spread open would be enough to drive anyone crazy, so Katya isn’t surprised when she rubs against her own hand and discovers she’s already wet.

She presses two fingers inside herself, and Trixie’s mouth falls open.

“Did you return the favor?” 

Katya rocks her hips forward against her fingers. She’s not like Trixie, who seems to have the pussy that never fucking ends; two fingers fill her up, and even as Trixie starts rambling again, she lets out a soft groan at the stretch. The way it feels when the heel of her palm brushes against her own clit.

“Yes.” Trixie nods. She’s on her elbows now, eyes fixated on Katya. “I was really nervous, but I liked how it tasted, and once I was done I couldn't stop licking my fingers.”

Katya fucks herself slowly. She puts her whole body into the motion, toes curling and hips bucking forward, even bites down on her own lip to stifle a moan. All while Trixie just sits there, dripping onto herself, but not daring to make a move.

“You wanna be touched so fucking bad, don’t you?” Katya breathes.

“Yes _please._ ” She sounds desperate.

Katya would take pity on her if this wasn’t so much _fun._

She draws her fingers out of herself slowly, strings of slick clinging to them and tangling against the mess of blonde hair between her legs. She crawls forward, over Trixie’s trembling body, holding her hand out so that she can press her fingers inside Trixie’s mouth. 

She sucks on them like they’re candy. 

“You taste better.” Trixie mumbles with her mouth full, sloppy and eager.

Katya groans at the sight and tugs her fingers free of Trixie’s lips, reaches down and _finally_ rubs her hand against Trixie’s pussy, in small, soft circles. 

As soon as she does Trixie, arches her back and gasps.

“If you want to come, you ask me.” Katya says. “And if I say no, I don’t want to hear any fucking complaints.”

She brings her hand down to smack her clit once, and Trixie yelps.

“I understand.” She shudders out.

There’s so many things Katya wants to do to her. So many things she wants to try, and they have so little time, she feels like every touch she lays on Trixie might be her last. After all, she’s been here for months. There’s only so long she can ride the coattails of Ginger’s hospitality before she has to be moving on. _Better make it count, then._

She moves her hand between Trixie’s legs, and presses two fingers inside her with hardly any resistance. Trixie’s eyes go just that little bit wider. Her hips rock against Katya’s hand, but otherwise she stays still; probably has a feeling that if she tries to touch herself, Katya will say no. Which is true.

“Hold your legs open.” Katya says.

Trixie’s immediately bringing her delicate hands underneath her own thighs, pulling them wider, and Katya pushes in a third finger into her. She moves inside Trixie slowly, wanting to draw it out, wanting her to feel every minute. 

_She’s so fucking warm._

“ _Katya._ ” Trixie starts, words coming through heavy breaths, “Please. I want - I want your mouth on me.”

Trixie’s stomach is probably one of Katya’s favorite parts of her. The little crease under her bellybutton, how soft it feels when Katya nuzzles her face there, the way it folds over itself twice when she sits up. While Trixie’s still keeping her legs spread, fingers white-knuckled against her own thighs, Katya leans in closer, licks over the bare skin, and then bites down _hard_. Hard enough to leave a mark.

Trixie gasps, all while Katya just smiles and hums against her. 

If there’s one thing she regretted about the first time she fucked Trixie, it was not eating her out. And then not eating her out a second time on her kitchen counter. They’d both been waiting long enough.

Katya lets her fingers go still inside Trixie, and flattens her tongue out to lick once, slowly, over Trixie’s pussy.

Involuntarily, Katya’s eyes fall shut, and she moans.

Trixie tastes fucking _amazing_. She closes her mouth around her clit and moves her entire head as she starts to eat Trixie out, forgetting for a moment that she’s supposed to be teasing. Supposed to make Trixie work for it. 

Above her, she can hear Trixie’s labored breaths. The gasps and the whines.

“ _Oh my god._ ” Trixie’s hips are squirming against Katya’s face, “Oh my god, Katya, _fuck._ ”

Katya flicks her eyes open. Trixie’s head is thrown back. One of her hands has left her thigh, and is instead grabbing at her breast, mouth wide open. And then Katya curls her fingers up, pressing against all the right places inside her, and she lets out a noise _so high-pitched_ Katya’s impressed it’s even audible.

Katya pulls her mouth away, covered in spit and Trixie’s wetness, and licks her lips before speaking.

“Tell me how it feels, baby.” She breathes, dipping her head back down and flicking her tongue over Trixie’s clit.

Trixie whines, and practically forces her eyes open.

“ _Katya,_ you’re - God, so good at this. It feels _so good._ ” 

Katya can feel Trixie’s pussy tightening around her fingers. Feel the tension in her body and the way her thighs shake on either side of Katya’s head. Katya’s eating her out for all she’s worth, lips swollen and hair messy as she drags her tongue over, and over, and over her labia, the taste of Trixie practically crawling down the back of her fucking throat.

“Please can I come?” Trixie gasps suddenly. She lets go of her breast and instead brings her hand up to shove a few stray locks of hair out of her face. Her expression is desperate, and awestruck. “Katya, _please can I come?_ ”

It would almost be a crime to say no. _And yet._

Katya stops moving her fingers, and pulls her mouth away.

“No.” 

She’s never seen anyone actually pout during sex. 

_Jesus, she looks like she’s about to cry._

Trixie’s bottom lip trembles and she frowns, but says nothing; no complaints just like she promised. Slowly, Katya begins moving her fingers again. Presses a soft closed-mouth kiss to Trixie’s clit, but then shifts to kiss her thighs instead.

“You’re so pretty, Trixie. Taste so fucking good.” Katya mumbles against her skin.

Trixie’s eyes are screwed shut, like she’s concentrating, and her bottom lip is trapped between her teeth. Katya keeps fucking her fingers in and out of Trixie as she kisses over her stomach. Over the still-fresh bite mark, imprints of Katya’s teeth next to her bellybutton. She kisses over her ribcage, over the dip in her chest, and over her collarbone. 

Trixie’s bucking her hips up against Katya’s fingers. Every so often, her clit rubs against Katya’s wrist, and it makes her whimper. 

“Katya, please, I can’t…” Trixie’s voice is trembling now too. 

“Can’t what?” 

“I can’t wait.”

Katya’s on top of Trixie now, hand between her legs, faces pressed together, and she can see the expression on Trixie’s face. Desperation, and need. 

“Come on, baby.” Katya drops a gentle kiss to her forehead. “You’re so good, I know you can be good. I know you can wait.”

Wickedly, she starts moving her fingers faster. 

She rocks her hips forward with every motion, both of their bodies moving together, and Trixie sucks in a sharp breath of air. It’s like she doesn’t dare to open her mouth, or her eyes, and just when it seems like she’s about to lose it, Katya tugs all three fingers out of her suddenly.

“ _Fuck._ ” Trixie groans, shuddering on the ground. 

She’s empty now, and Katya can see the way her pussy twitches, begging to be filled again. Katya lets her lay there, breathing heavy, sweating. And as much as she could play this game all night - till the sun went down over the treeline, and the fireflies began to crawl out of shadows - she has needs too. 

Katya glances down between her own legs. 

She’s wet down her thighs, and suddenly she realizes how much she’s aching for it as well.

“Trix. Look at me.” 

Katya watches the way Trixie’s eyes roll up to meet her, all pupils, hardly any brown. 

She swings a leg over Trixie’s. Truth be told Katya’s not _always_ in the mood for good old fashioned tribadism, because she doesn’t live her life in an early 90’s VHS porn (despite the rumors), but she knows how sensitive they both are. Knows that it would take hardly anything to make either of them come, and can’t shake the need to just fucking feel Trixie in any way she can. The need for skin-on-skin.

Katya’s hands come up to grab Trixie at her knee. She settles in her lap, both of their vulvas pressing together.

Katya rocks her hips forward, once, and her eyes roll into the back of her head.

The sensation is - it isn’t like anything she’s felt with anyone else. It’s electric, and somewhere in between them she loses track of where her pleasure ends and where Trixie’s begins. All she can feel is how warm it is between her legs, and all she can hear is Trixie moaning deep underneath her.

“You’re fucking perfect.” Katya breathes.

She finds a pace with her hips quickly. Every time she thrusts forward, Trixie’s tits bounce back so hard she takes to grabbing at them again, practically sobbing now. It’s so _needy_ , her fingers digging into Trixie’s skin, their clits catching against one another as they move. 

Then Katya feels Trixie grabbing at her side, the scratch of her nails.

“Katya, I can’t, _I really can’t._ ” She babbles. “I’m gonna fucking come if you don’t stop, God, _fuck, please._ ”

Katya rolls her hips once more.

Her own legs are shaking, her arms, her entire fucking body, as she moves.

“ _Then come._ ” 

She barely gets it out, through gritted teeth, before she feels her own orgasm rush over her.

Katya can’t remember the last time she lost control in front of someone else like this. Really lost control, her entire body trembling, grasping onto Trixie’s leg like she’s drowning. She isn’t aware of the way her knees have become red against the hard ground, or the dirt sticking to Trixie’s back where the jacket underneath them has bunched up. 

Beneath her, Trixie’s moan breaks off into a shudder, and Katya feels a new rush of warmth in between their legs. To stifle her own moan she bites into the skin of Trixie’s thigh. It’s everything, everything she can feel, and she lets her own hips _twitch_ and _twitch_ until she eventually falls still. 

Katya slumps over Trixie. 

_Now that’s a fucking workout._

Her head is resting in the crook of Trixie’s neck, and they’re both breathing loud enough that it drowns out the sound of the waterfall, if only just for a moment.

Katya blinks a few times, and on shaky arms, pushes herself up and peels her body off Trixie. There’s sweat between them, and come drying on their thighs. 

Trixie really has no business looking so damn beautiful. 

Her makeup is mostly gone, either from the swimming or from the fucking, but her eyes are big and her skin is glowing.

They’re just staring. Stupid. Thoughtless.

_What does she say?_

She should definitely say something, but there aren’t words - not really - for the specific things she’s feeling. Not that she’d want to voice them even if she knew how. Attachment never works out the way you think it’s going to. 

So she kisses Trixie again.

_And kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her._  


~

  
By the time they start riding home, the sun has disappeared in the sky. Katya’s headlights are bright on the highway, and the deep purple of the fading sunset, freckled by the evening star, is carrying them back towards town.

With Trixie half-asleep against her, and wind rushing over them, Katya wonders what it would be like - for the first time in a long time - if she truly had someone that she could call her own.

_No. Can’t think like that._

_Nothing’s your own, not really._

_Just what is now, and what will eventually be._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so the timeline in this chapter is kind of whack. I really hope it reads well. Double-POV of the same scene as well as a little flashback in the middle. Should all make sense by the end, but this is un beta'd, so be kind! thank you to everyone still reading i love you!!

Katya’s inside of her when the dam breaks. 

There’s no way she can keep quiet about it; the weird distant expression that’s been on Katya’s face for the past twenty minutes she’s been fucking Trixie into the mattress. Apparently if you go hard enough in a trailer it rocks, the wheels groaning and the metal shifting. That’s been their erotic soundtrack. _Squeak, squeak, squeak,_ Katya huffing with the effort, and Trixie gasping. 

Trixie hasn’t said anything yet to preserve the mood, or what the fuck ever, but there’s only such a lack of attention she can handle receiving before she has to do something about it. 

“Katya, stop.” Trixie huffs, and presses a hand against Katya’s chest.

She took two days off work for this. 

The story that Katya spun was that Ginger, the woman who owned the trailer, was visiting her aunt or niece or ex husband (etcetera), and Katya had full reign of the place for a blissful weekend. _How could that not be enticing?_ They’ve been sleeping together on and off for three weeks now. Three weeks filled with Katya stopping by the diner to see her during her breaks, buying her cheap drinks in dive bars, and sometimes even hanging around to drive Trixie home after a long shift. One night they were so ravenous Katya had even hauled Trixie around the back of the diner and fingered her against the filthy brick wall, Trixie’s face buried in her shoulder whimpering. It’s a kind of intimacy Trixie’s never experienced before. At least, not with someone she truly cared about. It’s also a kind of intimacy she hoped she’d never have to experience inside a trailer ( _talk about a stereotype_ ) but beggars can’t be choosers.

Usually Trixie was trying to buy more time with Katya. When they were together, it wasn’t long before Katya inevitably made up some excuse why she had to leave. That, or Trixie started asking too many questions and she became evasive, spouting nonsense until Trixie eventually got frustrated and gave up. _But a weekend together?_ That felt serious, as much as she tried not to think about it.

She’d been excited. Packed, showered, shaved, put on hot underwear and everything.

But ever since Katya picked Trixie up at the front door of her apartment complex, cigarette in hand and hair freshly chopped even shorter ( _up to her ears now, a self-given haircut, and a sloppy one at that_ ) something’s been off. Even now, with Katya above her looking fucking angelic, arms tensed and brow furrowed - it’s weird.

“What?” Katya snaps out of her little trance immediately, and stills her hips. She seems genuinely concerned, and when her eyes go wide, they go _so wide_ , all blue and white. “What’s wrong, does it hurt?”

Trixie shifts underneath her so that she can smooth her hands up and down Katya’s arms. They’re a little damp with sweat, but the window next to them is open, and the night air is pouring in and folding over them like a blanket ( _they kicked all the actual blankets onto the ground_ ).

“No, it feels good.” Trixie shakes her head. “Just. You seem like you’re kind of…” 

She doesn’t quite know how to articulate it, so she just waves her hand vaguely. 

Katya pulls deb out of her, and it makes a small _squish_. 

Empty now, Trixie pulls her knees closer together.

“Kind of what?” 

Trixie rolls her eyes. 

“I don’t know, distant?”

Katya frowns for a second. It’s an interesting conversation to have with Trixie underneath her in just a baggy t-shirt bunched up over her tits, and Katya, sporting a jet black strapon. But Trixie feels like it’s a conversation worth having.

“It’s probably just all the blood going straight to my dick ‘cause I’m so fucking turned on right now.” Katya grins, and slaps at Deb with one of her hands. “Makes you light-headed.”

It would be convincing if they’d just met, but by this point, Trixie’s figured out when Katya’s being stupid for the fun of it, and when she’s being stupid to cover something up.

“You’ve been acting weird the whole time we’ve been out here.” 

Trixie pulls her top back down over her breasts, smoothing it with both hands. Now it’s Katya’s turn to roll her eyes. She sits back on her heels and starts fiddling with the buckle on the side of the harness. 

“If you wanted to fuck someone who acts normal you are _definitely_ barking up the wrong slut.” 

When Katya finally gets the harness unhooked she tugs it free of her legs and tosses it aside. It leaves her just in the underwear that she’d been wearing underneath, dark blue briefs with a small wet patch on them that Trixie can’t help but feel proudly responsible for. Katya doesn’t sound angry, but she does sound bothered. Even as she gets up and walks the length of the trailer, there’s a distinct lack of hostility, like maybe she’s just lost in thought, or weary. 

Trixie is left laying in the bed alone. Gingers bed, that Katya had apparently promised she wouldn’t use for sex, right before she immediately used it for sex. 

Suddenly the air coming through the window is too cold.

Once at the far end, Katya lights a cigarette. When she shoves the window open it squeaks on its frame, and she holds the burning ember outside. Not about to let things go so easily, Trixie swings her legs over the side of the bed and grabs at her underwear, steps into them quick, and follows Katya to the other side of the trailer, next to the tiny linoleum dinner table and kitchen. 

_It’s like someone took Dela’s Diner and turned it into a fucking 500 square foot living space._

Katya looks up at Trixie as she nears, and something in her expression is suddenly passive. 

“Okay, you got me. I am a little bit … I dunno, melancholy.” Katya sighs. She takes a drag off her cigarette and blows it out the window, “I just wanted this to be really nice for you.” 

She reaches out and grabs Trixie by the waistband of her underwear, pulling her closer. Trixie lets her too, steps in so that she can smell whatever cologne Katya wears, and feel the heat radiating off her body.

Outside the window, she can hear so many crickets. A whole army of them, and moths bumping into the porch light, and distant animals searching in the night for food. It’s so beautiful it almost puts the situation to shame.

“I think I’m gonna’ split soon.” Katya says.

Trixie’s fucking heart drops. 

Theoretically, of course it was within the realm of possibility that Katya would leave, eventually. She had to. She didn’t have a job or a home in Saloma. But Trixie had hoped that somehow they would just stick together, and keep sticking together, and everything else would work out. That was the childish part of her brain talking. 

“What?” She blinks. “Like, leave town?” 

Katya nods.

“Sucks, right?” She brings her hand up and flicks Trixie’s nipple. “Feel like I could shove my face between those for the rest of my life.”

Trixie swats her hand away half-heartedly.

“How soon?” 

“Like maybe later on this week?” Katya winces. 

Trixie can’t help but make it glaringly obvious how unhappy she is about the idea of Katya leaving. Can’t keep it off her face. _And why shouldn’t she be upset?_ It _does_ suck. Katya is the closest thing Trixie’s ever had to an actual girlfriend, not that they’re dating, but it seemed like they could be, soon, maybe, if she had a little more time.

“And you’re just fine with that?” 

Katya flicks her cigarette.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She squints. “I don’t fucking live here, you do.”

Trixie feels a surge of unwarranted anger within her, and her first impulse is that she wants to leave. Storm out. Make a big fuss, or at the very least, make Katya think twice about her nonchalant attitude. But they’re 20 minutes out of town by motorcycle. _Katya’s motorcycle._

“Trix, don’t make this a big deal.” Katya sighs. 

Trixie doesn’t say anything, but it’s obvious Katya knows what she’s thinking. 

She can tell just by the look on her face.

“I’m not taking you with me.” Katya holds up a finger. “I know this is hard for you to understand, but it’s a really bad idea.”

“Oh, and you just doing all this and then leaving is a good idea?”

_It’s an awful idea. It’s awful, and she should feel bad, and Trixie doesn’t want her to go._

”We’ve been having fun, that’s what we’re supposed to do.” 

“Maybe _you’ve_ been having fun.” Trixie scoffs, “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you that you’re a pathological liar and I don’t believe half the shit you say.”

That - _that_ one is a low blow. 

Even Trixie, who won’t deny she’s said her fair share of fucked up shit, knows that it’s crossing the line. 

_But now that she’s gone and made things worse, why stop there?_

“Every time I ask about your life you say something different. Every time.” She says.

Katya’s face is serious now. No smile, no twinkle in her eye. 

“Sorry you can’t take a joke.” Katya says slowly, after a moment.

“No, that’s not joking. You know that’s not joking.” Trixie knows because when Katya jokes, it’s easy. It’s them laughing and hitting each other on the thighs, and bumping their foreheads together, and then there’s when Katya’s lying. It feels different. _It feels like this._

Katya tosses her still burning cigarette butt into the sink, and walks over to the front door. Her silence makes Trixie more uncomfortable than anything. She watches as Katya slips on a pair of sandals discarded on the welcome mat, snatches a new pack of cigarettes off the counter, and trudges out into the muggy night bare-chested, and fuming.

Trixie comes to lean in the doorframe. 

The night is dim, but there’s still a soft blue glow in the sky, enough to light Katya from all sides, as does the yellow buzzing porch light.

Hastily, Trixie watches Katya spark up two cigarettes at once.

“Why isn’t it a good idea for me to come?” Trixie asks. 

No answer. 

Then again. 

“Oh, that’s too personal? Why are you on the road?”

Still no answer.

_It’s like that, then._

“Who the fuck is Svetlana?”

Katya brings her hands up to grasp at her own hair, and a few ashes fall against the dirty blonde strands.

“Oh my god, _shut the fuck up._ ”

Katya’s voice sounds wrecked. Wrecked, and furious, and Trixie watches as she takes another trembling drag off her two cigarettes in hand. 

She says something then, but it’s whispered, muffled, and Trixie can barely hear. 

“What?” She calls out from the porch steps.

Katya spins around, and this time, she almost yells.

“ _She’s my mom._ ” 

Trixie doesn’t think she’s ever heard Katya sound so cold. Never seen her like this; shaking hands and chest heaving. Katya takes a deep breath, and shakes her head, before she continues.

“ _God_ , does that make you happy? Is that what you wanted to know about? About - about how we were basically the same person, and then I was fucking _alone_ in Boston, and I got _this_...” She gestures to her tattoo, “...and I had to - I had to fucking _get out_. She left me like forty grand, and I I felt like absolute shit, and I had _so much time to kill_. Do you even know what that fucking means for someone like me?”

Katya holds up a hand.

“Don’t - don’t answer that, I know you don’t.” Katya gestures to her. “You have no idea. Listen, if you think you have problems…”

She trails off. Takes another shaky inhale.

“That’s why it’s a bad idea.” Katya breathes. “We’ve been having fun because I’ve been funneling all my goddamn energy into just keeping it together around you, and it’s been working, so I’m really not sure why you had to go and pull this shit.”

For a long moment, Trixie is speechless. 

It’s awful. It’s awful to imagine, and she can’t help but feel guilty. Guilty for unearthing something that clearly wasn’t meant for her ears. But then her ego is pushing through it all, and she decides that no, she can’t back down, not even if she should.

“Caring about you? That shit?” Trixie asks, although quiet now.

“No, I was more talking about being a nosy bitch, but we can say all of the above.”

Sitting inside Trixie’s chest is a sick combination of anger at herself, and anger at Katya for not trusting her. For not realizing how _good_ they could have it if she just stopped and thought for two seconds. But the worst part is, mixed in with all the hurt is a deep and genuine sorrow for what Katya has been through. 

She wants to reach out and touch her hair. 

She wants to kiss her on the neck and say it’s going to be alright, but she has no idea if it’s going to be alright.

Instead of opening her big fucking mouth again, Trixie slinks back into the trailer and lets the door shut quietly behind her.  


~

  
Katya’s in the grocery store when she gets the call.

There’s a few supermarkets within the city limits, but when she has the time, Katya vastly prefers to hit up the rickety small-town general stores that kind of make you feel like you’re going to be murdered. Way more exciting, and whenever there’s a 60 year old Catholic hick of a woman working the front counter, she likes to flirt, make em’ feel really angry while she’s stocking up on peanut butter and milk.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket as she’s scanning the frozen pizza section, and when she looks at the screen, she blinks hard.

_This cunt, of all people?_

Katya clears her throat, switching into her Russian accent as she clicks receiver.

“You’ve reached 1-800-fuckfest, fiifty dollars gets you five minutes of raw unbridled foot fetish- ” 

“Oh good, you’re alive!” 

Violet’s voice immediately cuts her off.

Katya can’t help but burst out laughing as she reaches into the freezer and starts grabbing an honestly irresponsible amount of five-cheese flavor hot pockets. She sounds exactly the same as she always does. Somewhere between unimpressed and smug.

“Chachki! What in the goddamn hell are you calling me for?” Katya asks.

She hasn’t heard from Violet in months. She hasn’t had a reason to. They never did go out for that drink, and all other things aside, Katya’s pretty sure they’re either enemies, or one fateful night away from just biting the bullet and getting married blackout drunk and Vegas-style.

“Out of the kindness of my heart. Of course.” Violet says.

Katya frowns.

“Your heart? You have one of those? I thought that was just a rumor. ”

“I just got one installed, but I’m not sure if I’m into it.” Violet’s voice is syrupy over the phone. Katya would sooner gag than actually admit she misses Violet, but she will admit that she misses those fucking legs.

“Where did you go?” Violet asks, “You’re way overdue for new ink.”

Katya heavily considers lying. She does it all the time for a good reason, but then figures, _what’s the point?_ She’s not trying to prove anything to Violet, who already knows Katya’s a raging mess. Who already knows what happened.

“I’m in the midwest right now. Staying with a friend.” A short pause, then, “How’s Boston? Crumbling without me?”

Violet huffs out a small laugh. It sounds like she’s in the shop, based on the voices in the background, and the way Violet’s voice keeps fading in and out as if she’s turning her head. Katya can almost picture it: Violet in her strappy skin-tight clothes and ponytail, her long nails stroking the coiled phone cord at the front desk. 

“I’m actually not in Boston either.”

“Oh?” 

“L.A.” Violet says. 

It makes a lot of sense when Katya really thinks about it. Violet seems like the type to fit in with the ultra glamorous and ultra beautiful and ultra snobby. She doesn’t even let herself feel upset about the fact that she’s stuck in backwoods bumfuck nowhere, and Violet’s probably living out a lifelong fantasy.

“That’s actually kind of why I was calling you.” Violet continues, before Katya can say anything. “I don’t know what you’re doing for work these days, but a friend of mine is opening up this… this biker bitch chop-shop kind of thing down here. I don’t know, it sounds exhausting in my opinion, but she’s looking for mechanics, and I thought of you.”

It sounds way too good to be true. 

So good, in fact, that Katya doesn’t spend too much time entertaining excitement, because those kind of things are usually dead-ends.

“Violet.” She sighs, “You can just say that you’re in love with me, you don’t have to make things up.” 

“I’m being serious!” Violet complains, “God, you don’t have to take it, I just thought I’d offer.”

“Thought you’d offer because you’re in love with me.”

“Because I think you deserve to catch a break.”

Katya thinks about it. 

_Really_ thinks about it.

She’s been riding for so long figuring that eventually something would fall into her lap. Expecting that that something would be crashing into a ditch, sure, but this is probably better if she’s thinking long-term. Doing what she’s good at, somewhere new, where nobody knows anything about her and she doesn’t have to walk down those same old streets, getting that kind of Deja Vu that makes you want to run till your legs give out. 

The frost-bitten hot pockets are melting in left hand. She can barely feel it anymore.

“What’s her number?”  


~

  
Trixie’s underneath her, but she can’t stop feeling guilt weighing on her back like she’s picked up a bunch of bricks.

She’s been trying _so fucking hard_. So hard to just have fun with Trixie, beautiful sweet Trixie who still fucks Katya like it’s the first time, every time. She’d known from the beginning, and especially the past three weeks, that their time together was almost up. Relationships weren’t part of Katya’s deal. Not in an edgy cold-hearted kind of way, just in the way that she’d never really had one, and never planned to, because they always got fucked up right when you were hoping they wouldn’t.

Every time she pushes in, the trailer groans, and so does Trixie, even rolls her eyes back into her head a little. Eyelashes fluttering full and thick, pink glossy lips parted - she’s beautiful. _So fucking beautiful._ Her makeup has even worn off enough that her freckles have begun poking out.

She’s wearing one of Katya’s t-shirts. It’s oversized and scrunched up over her tits, peppered with small hickeys and bite marks that Katya’s already left there. And it’s good to have her like this, good to be with her, until all of a sudden she feels one of Trixie’s small hands pressing against her chest.

“Katya, stop.” 

She immediately goes still.

_Oh God, what did she do wrong now?_

“What?” Katya looks at Trixie’s face. She doesn’t seem uncomfortable, just a little confused, “What’s wrong, does it hurt?”

Katya feels Trixie’s hands move up and down her arms, and in their wake, leave small goosebumps. It’s partly the fault of the window that they left open, so that the cold night air could calm their uncoordinated sweaty bodies.

“No, it feels good.” Trixie shakes her head. “Just - you seem like you’re kind of…” 

Sensing that the focus has shifted from fucking to feeling things, she pulls out, Deb dripping with Trixie’s slick and hanging low between her legs. Trixie pulls her knees together.

“Kind of what?” Katya asks.

Trixie rolls her eyes. 

“I don’t know, distant?”

It’s frustrating because Katya thought she was doing so good. Fucking A-plus in hiding her emotions, top of the class. All she wanted was to give Trixie one really good weekend; something she could remember after Katya hit the road. Deep down, she knows, she should’ve been honest with her from the beginning about how things had to end. She’s been letting Trixie get that dopey lovestruck look in her eyes and not saying a word about it, like maybe _‘I’m not looking for anything serious’_ or even _‘I tend to leave when people least expect me to and then not worry about the emotional impact I have on others’._

But she can’t go being honest like that.

“It’s probably just all the blood going straight to my dick ‘cause I’m so fucking turned on right now.” She grins, and slaps at Deb with one of her hands. “Makes you light-headed.”

It’s a great line, but Trixie isn’t buying it.

“You’ve been acting weird the whole time we’ve been out here.” 

Trixie pulls her top back down over her breasts. _Fine, fucking forgive me for thinking about something other than you for a second._ It’s kind of annoying how fast Trixie switches from starstruck to huffy. How she likes to deal with problems instead of repress them.

“If you wanted to fuck someone who acts normal you are _definitely_ barking up the wrong slut.” Katya says, as she begins to unbuckle the harness at her hip.

When she finally gets it unhooked she pulls it over her legs and tosses it aside. 

She needs a cigarette, and seeing as Trixie obviously isn’t pulling out her tits again anytime soon, she gets up from the unkempt bed and pads through the length of the trailer. 

Trixie is left laying there alone. Ginger’s _one condition_ for the whole weekend was that Katya wouldn’t use her bed for sex, ( _the couch, the dinner table, the floor - anything else, please?_ ) but Katya can afford a laundromat, and what Ginger doesn’t know won’t kill her. 

Once at the far end, Katya grabs a cigarette she’d left for herself on the counter with excellent foresight, and shoves the rickety window open. She sparks it up outside, watches how the smoke spills into the night, clawing upwards against the trees. She’s hoping that Trixie doesn’t get angry, because this is all she can give. Sex, a drink, a laugh, a touch. That’s how it’s always been. That’s what she’s good for.

Trixie’s footsteps are soft as she shuffles through the trailer to stand near Katya. 

She’s in her underwear now, and as much as Katya wants to avoid looking at her, she can’t help it. Can’t help the way her expression melts as she glances over Trixie’s messy curly hair, flushed cheeks, and fake lashes that are miraculously still in place.

_Damnit._

“Okay, you got me.” Katya sighs, “I am a little bit … I dunno, melancholy.” She takes a drag off her cigarette and blows it out the window, then adds “I just wanted this to be really nice for you.” 

It is, in a shocking turn of events, the truth.

She reaches out and grabs Trixie by the waistband of her underwear, pulling her closer. Trixie lets her, and Katya loves the way she leans into it, hip pressing against Katya’s side. There isn’t a nice way to say what she needs to say. There isn’t a way that will make it feel any better, but there’s no other option.

“I think I’m gonna’ split soon.” 

Oh, the way Trixie’s face falls just makes Katya want to crawl out the fucking window. Roam through the underbrush until she’s eventually mauled by a bear. She doesn’t want to be responsible for that emotion. But at the same time, it’s Trixie’s delusion that this would last forever. Katya never promised her anything.

“What?” Trixie blinks. “Like, leave town?” 

Katya nods.

“Sucks, right?” She brings her hand up and flicks Trixie’s nipple. “Feel like I could shove my face between those for the rest of my life.”

Trixie swats her hand away, and Katya can tell that the attempts to make her feel better are just making things worse.

“How soon?” She asks.

“Like maybe later on this week?” 

Katya knew she’d be disappointed, but not like this. It seemed like something they should be able to laugh about, bitch about, and move forward. If Trixie had any idea what spending more time with Katya would actually look like, she’d be thankful for an easy way out.

“And you’re just fine with that?” Trixie asks.

Her voice comes out taught, and angry.

Katya flicks her cigarette.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She squints. “I don’t fucking live here, you do.”

It’s a little childish. Maybe if Katya was still 25 she’d feel childish too, feel the impulse to bicker and beg and believe that they could make things work, but she’s not. She’s a life-weathered downtrodden hag who knows _exactly_ how this kind of situation ends.

“Trix, don’t make this a big deal.” Katya sighs. 

Trixie doesn’t say anything, but it’s obvious what she’s thinking. 

Katya can see it in her eyes, the silent question, the hurt and the hope.

_So fucking misplaced._

“I’m not taking you with me.” Katya holds up a finger. “I know this is hard for you to understand, but it’s a really bad idea.”

“Oh, and you just doing all this and then leaving is a good idea?”

_It’s an awful idea. She has no idea how awful._

”We’ve been having fun, that’s what we’re supposed to do.” 

“Maybe _you’ve_ been having fun.” Trixie scoffs, “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you that you’re a pathological liar and I don’t believe half the shit you say.”

Katya is stunned into silence.

Rarely does she run out of things to say. A quick one-liner is always dancing around on the tip of her tongue, or even an insult if she needs it, but she’s got nothing. Can’t do a single fucking thing except stare.

“Every time I ask about your life you say something different. Every time.” Trixie continues.

Katya thinks about her next words for a long moment. There’s nerves rushing all through her body; that telltale tingling in the middle of her chest that usually signals a panic attack just around the corner. 

_Not if she can help it, though._

“Sorry you can’t take a joke.” She says, eventually. But Trixie won’t let it go.

“No, that’s not joking. You know that’s not joking.”

_Okay, fuck this._

Katya tosses her still burning cigarette butt into the sink, and walks over to the front door. 

She slips on a pair of sandals discarded on the welcome mat ( _Ginger’s shoes, not that she would care_ ) and snatches an unopened pack of cigarettes off the counter. The night is hot, and she’s thankful to be bare-chested, as she steps down the creaky platform and into the grass.

Behind her, she can hear Trixie lean against the doorframe. 

The moon is bright enough that she doesn’t have to fiddle with the cigarettes for too long before she pulls out two, lights them both in her mouth. Her fingers are shaking. She hates that her fingers are shaking, but she can’t make them stop no matter how much she fucking tries, so she drops the lighter onto the ground and keeps her arms drawn around herself.

“Why isn’t it a good idea for me to come?” Trixie asks. 

Katya doesn’t answer. 

Then again. 

“Oh, that’s too personal? Why are you on the road?”

_Yes, it’s too personal, fuck you._

Still nothing.

“Who the fuck is Svetlana?”

All the breath rushes out of her lungs at once. Just hearing Trixie say the name feels like a slap to the face. She’s been pushing all of that out of her mind, all of it, _so successfully_ , and Katya brings her hands up to grasp at her own hair, tugging till it hurts, till it hurts so much that it helps. 

“Oh my god, _shut the fuck up._ ”

She doesn’t even realize she’s yelling until it’s too late. 

Scared to see the expression on Trixie’s face, she takes another trembling drag off her two cigarettes in hand, her eyes unfocused looking out into the dark.

“She’s my mom.”

She says it through a mouthful of smoke, and quietly. She’s not surprised when Trixie calls out to her from the door.

“What?” 

Katya spins around. She knows how she looks, dazed and distraught, but she fucking _is_. She is because Trixie has no idea what she’s asking.

“ _She’s my mom._ ” 

Trixie hears her that time. 

Katya takes a deep breath, and shakes her head, before she continues.

“ _God_ , does that make you happy? Is that what you wanted to know about? About - about how - how we were basically the same person, and then I was fucking _alone_ in Boston, and I got _this_...” She gestures to her tattoo, “...and I had to - I had to fucking get out.” Katya shakes her head. _Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths._ “She left me like forty grand, and I I felt like absolute shit, and I had _so much time to kill_. Do you even know what fucking that means for someone like me?”

Katya holds up a hand.

“Don’t - don’t answer that, I know you don’t.” Katya gestures to her. “You have no idea. Listen, if you think you have problems…”

She trails off. Takes another shaky inhale.

“That’s why it’s a bad idea.” Katya breathes. “We’ve been having fun because I’ve been funneling all my goddamn energy into just keeping it together around you, and it’s been working, so I’m really not sure why you had to go and pull this shit.”

For a long moment, Trixie is speechless, and Katya feels a wave of catharsis wash over her. There’s nothing left to worry about because she’s already fucked things up. Showed her true colors, all of that. It feels awful, but behind that, comforting. To know that she truly has no reason to stick around anymore.

“Caring about you? That shit?” Trixie asks, although quiet now.

Katya rolls her eyes.

“No, I was more talking about being a nosy bitch, but we can say all of the above.”

It’s uncalled for, but so was Trixie calling her a liar, and so was the whole night. The whole damn night that Katya should’ve spent giving Trixie orgasm after orgasm until they both eventually passed out, happy and boneless. 

_This is why relationships don’t work. The feelings start to ruin the sex, then the feelings start to ruin you._

Both of the cigarettes in her mouth are halfway gone.

She watches through the smoke as Trixie turns her back and lets the door shut quietly behind her.  


~

  
It’s one in the morning when Katya finally comes back inside.

While chainsmoking she’d found a pen sitting on what Ginger likes to call her ‘lawn set’ ( _a plastic table and folding chairs_ ), and used it to draw all kinds of symbols and scribbles and numbers on her arm, in the places where she still has bare skin. A good stupid way to keep occupied. Inside the trailer, the lights are off. There’s a faint scent of fake flowers, which means that Trixie must have passive aggressively Febreezed the place in retaliation for Katya leaving a burning cigarette in the kitchen.

Trixie is in bed. 

She’d never admit to it, but when she sleeps, she snores quietly, and Katya can hear her breathing. She walks from one end of the trailer to the small bedroom, to where Trixie’s hair is sprawled over the pillow, and lit up by the blue haze outside the window.

_It’s sad that Trixie wants her. She deserves a different life._

Katya slips underneath the sheets, and despite her best efforts to be quiet, hears Trixie stop snoring and shift a little in place.

It feels wrong to ignore her, or pretend that she’s sleeping, so Katya reaches out and places a hand on her waist. Trixie moves again, and once she’s certain that yes, she is, in fact, awake, Katya clears her throat.

“I got a job offer in California.” Katya says after a long moment. “It’s just a bike shop, but I’d have a chick for a boss, and it pays well.”

Trixie doesn’t say anything. 

“I’m just… trying to get things back to normal, for myself. I wish it was... I wish I hadn’t met you like this.”

There’s another long pause that makes Katya wonder if Trixie actually has silently fallen back asleep, but then Katya feels her scoot back, pressing her body in close, and pulling Katya’s arm further around her waist.

“It’s fine.” She mumbles, “Just go to sleep.”

It’s no easy task, but when Katya finally does fall asleep ( _At three? Four? There’s no clock on the nightstand_ ) she’s clinging to Trixie for dear life. The sun is teasing it’s way up below the horizon, painting everything robins egg blue, and in her dreams she’s still listening to the sound of early-morning birds humming in their nests, preening, and greeting yet another bitch of a day.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh wow. A huge huge thank you to everyone who has read this and left me feedback, you guys mean the world to me honestly. Two months ago I was convinced I wasn’t even capable of writing so this has been a really great experience for me.
> 
> A song for this chapter would definitely be I Follow You by Melody’s Echo Chamber. I may write an epilogue at some point but for now, la fin ♥️

Ginger watches Katya pack all her things.  

There’s a glare plastered on her stupid overdone face, peeking through layers of foundation and lip liner, and Katya can’t even _say anything_ about it.  It’s partly because of the bed.  Partly because Ginger had found what was, without a doubt, a come stain on the sheets ( _what can she say, Trixie gets messy_ ) and chewed Katya out about it for like an hour, before making her wash all the bedding in an old bucket using well water.  After she was done her hands looked like they belonged to an eighty year old woman even more than usual, wrinkled and pale.

But she isn’t getting kicked out.  She’s choosing to leave.

Trixie hasn’t said much to her since Sunday; texted Katya the morning after they parted ways about forgetting her bra in the trailer, asking if Katya could drop it off after work, and that’s been the closest they’ve had to a real conversation.  Katya still has it folded up inside one of her band t-shirts, but she knows full well Trixie has no shortage of lingerie, and told her that she would swing it by before she hit the highway. In the meantime, whenever she sees a corner of the pink lace poking out of her clothes pile, she wants to punch a wall.

That’s the other reason Ginger’s pissed.  Because out of all the girls Katya’s ever decided to spend time with, this was the nicest one.  This was the only one that sounded like she could handle Katya’s shit.

“Well, she couldn’t handle my shit, that’s why we’re - you know - not fucking talking about it.”  Katya mumbles, as she loads up her backpack with what sparse jeans and t-shirts she owns. Carrying all her belongings on her back for so long has been freeing.  More so than she’d expected. Maybe it’ll be hard, she thinks, when she gets to L.A., to have a full set of possessions again.

And while of _course_ she’s halfway messed up about Trixie, the job is like a golden carrot dangling on a string.

She’s had two phone interviews, that were honestly less interviews and more some woman named Shea with a smooth voice asking frankly if she actually knew her shit about bikes or not.  It was a breeze to rattle off all the parts inside a carburetor, when to check for internal oil leakage, or how to fix a defective pressure gauge, _blah blah blah_ .  She was also pretty sure being gay was a requirement, based off how much emphasis Shea had put on the fact that they were an _exclusively female_ business, and she intended to keep it that way.

It’s the thought of this job that keeps her packing and not running back into town to grovel.

“I think you’re just lookin’ for a reason to feel better about being a flighty cunt.”  Ginger says.

She’s not wrong, but Katya’s not about to say she’s right.

“I’m really gonna’ miss you hurling insults at me.”  Katya sighs, as she shoves the last of her things - a few bits of jewelry and her slightly neglected collection of about five makeup products - into the front pocket and zips it closed.  “Do you know that I picture your face during sex? Just really - _really_ letting me have it, it’s the only way I can get off.”

“That’s too bad.”  Ginger says, “Personally, I can’t wait for you to get the fuck outta’ dodge.”

Katya puts her hand over her heart and makes an expression of faux-distress.

“I thought I was your best friend.”  

Ginger laughs and taps her cigarette in a swan-shaped ashtray.

“That was before the sheets.”

~

 

Katya had fucked her way through her first year of college.  

Whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing, jury’s still out, but somewhere in the world she knows there’s a disposable photo of her naked face-down on someone's bare floor mattress with _шлюха_ written on her back.  It was before she cut her hair.  Before she knew she could. Art school practically bred identity crises, and it had ended up being a bust anyways - she only attended a year and a half - but even in amongst all the angsty confusion of one’s early twenties, and the fact that she just couldn’t seem to escape being _super fucking weird_ , she’d found the time to hold down a girlfriend.  

Three months it lasted.  Three months that nowadays seem impressive; a feat and an eternity.  

Three months of fucking on bunk beds, eating in the dining hall together, sneaking into clubs, binge drinking on curbs downtown.

And then it just _stopped_.  

The feeling that she’d had at the beginning, where she’d space off on someone’s filthy couch wondering what she was up to, whether or not she would be free later.  All the mistique, the thrill of the chase, gone overnight, and suddenly all she felt was trapped.

She’d fucked it up pretty quick after that. Got wasted at a party and fingered some stranger in the bathroom loud enough that the rumors spread, and the next day, she was a single bitch without a care in the world.

She doesn’t want to put that on Trixie.  The weight of how grand it would be, when they crashed and burned.  All the dark places the blaze would illuminate. They were both be better off on their own paths, Katya keeping to her one night stands and emotional detachment, and Trixie finding someone who could truly care about her.

The thought of that - Trixie curled in bed with another woman, waking up next to her and kissing her neck, getting fucked before the sun comes up, or just complaining about the weather - tugs at her something awful, but she lets it slip out of her mind, drowned out by the sound of the highway.

The alley behind the diner is where she leaves her bike.  

Cowardice isn’t usually Katya’s _thing_ , but she didn’t want Trixie to catch sight of her through the windows and sneak into the break room or something to avoid her, so she unstraps her helmet next to the day-old-food-filled dumpster and dismounts slowly.  

_She can do this.  She can do this, and it’ll be fine, because it’s always fine._

She has Trixie’s bra stuffed into one of the oversized pockets of her leather riding jacket, as she pulls the glass door open and walks into the diner.  Her hand is on it too, squeezing tight around the underwire until it pokes her a little.

As usual, it’s middle-of-the-day sleepy in Dela’s, and there’s clanging noises coming from the kitchen.  Her arrival is announced by the tacky doorbell. While she hoped she’d have a second to compose herself before they came face-to-face, Trixie’s bent over a table with a dirty rag in her hand, and the second Katya makes it to the welcome mat, her eyes are immediately on her.  

 _Great, no need to beat around it._  

She had apparently taken the time to straighten her hair that morning, a look that Katya’s never seen on her. It reaches down to her ass, uniform clinging tight against her curves.  Her earrings are _huge_ , too, shimmering with fake rhinestones, glamorous but without-a-doubt uncomfortable. 

She’s fucking stunning _._  

Trixie tucks part of her hair behind her ear and, although tentatively, walks over.  She’s not wearing heels this time. Pink flats. _So practical._  It’s crazy how fast she can make Katya tongue-tied without even trying, but she clears her throat and puts on her best _everything’s cool_ face.  

“Hey!  Got something for you.”  Katya pulls the scrunched-up bra out of her pocket and holds it out to Trixie.  She takes it hastily, shoves it into the pocket of her apron before anyone can see what it is.

“Thanks.”  Trixie says.   

She looks just about as annoyed as when Katya had thrown her in the water.  If not more.

“Yeah, no problem.”  Katya glances around the diner.  Over in the corner, someone’s putting a dime into the jukebox, and a few seconds later, the first notes of _Just Like A Woman_ fill the room. “Are you sure you need it back though?  I’ve been meaning to get a spare helmet for the bike, I could fit like three of my heads in there.”

Where Trixie would usually be laughing, or egging her on, there’s just this silence.  It’s thick, and awful, and it kind of makes Katya want to bolt, but she swallows her pride.  It’s important that she takes time with this. She’s tired of leaving loose ends in every state she visits. 

“Can I, uh - “ _Why is this so weird,_  “ - I don’t know, hug you goodbye?”

Trixie’s standing with her arms crossed over her chest like Katya’s a stranger.  Like they hadn’t spent hours upon hours grinding up against each-other and making out in the parking lot of _this very restaurant._

“I really think it’s better if you just go. 

Katya’s heart sinks.

She struggles to find the right words, but everything in her mind sounds like it would come out sounding desperate or pathetic.

“Aw, come on.” Katya teases, “Not even a peck on the cheek?”  

Trixie’s face remains serious.  She exhales and glances over her shoulder ( _a quick check to confirm that no, her boss isn’t paying attention, just furiously scrambling eggs_ ) and then looks down at the ground.  At the black and white tiles, filthy with mud and sneaker marks.

“I’m not trying to be a bitch”  She starts, “I just really don’t have anything to say.”  When she finally looks back up at Katya, her expression is completely blank. “Thanks for the bra. I hope it goes well in California.”  

It’s all she gets - _so informal_ \- before Trixie’s turning and walking away towards the kitchen.  Katya watches the way her hair sways with her hips, her hands gripping the dish rag still.  She wants to run after Trixie. Get in just another few minutes, talk to her, say _something_ to make it better. 

_There’s nothing that’s gonna make it better._  

In a corner booth near the door, just a few feet from where Katya’s standing looking like an absolute idiot, an old man sporting a fishing jacket and a baseball cap turns his head to give her a curt nod.  He’s got gnarled hands gripping a cup of black coffee like a lifeline. Katya’s almost jealous. She’d do anything to just be an ancient fuck eating breakfast alone without a care in the world.

“Women.”  He grunts; probably on his third-ex wife with how bitter his tone is.

“Can’t live with em’, can’t live without em’.”  Katya agrees quietly, turns on her heel, walks back through the glass doors into the parking lot.

The sky outside is holding back a faint promise of rain, swollen and indecisive.  She trudges past the walkway, past the windows, around the back of the diner. A waitress she’s never seen before is taking a smoking break next to the dumpster, and she gives Katya the stink eye from behind thick-rimmed glasses.  Oh, Katya _wishes_ she would say something.   _Yeah, call me a dyke, give me good reason to punch your last three teeth out._

The waitress is silent.  Katya climbs onto her bike, and grips the handlebars till her fingers go white.   

It would’ve been so simple if she hadn’t run into Trixie again.  If she hadn’t stumbled out of a bar off-her-ass drunk and into her arms.  Their first encounter would have remained untainted and picture-perfect. She could recall the way Trixie’s eyes flickered as she sunk to her knees, crawled across a filthy motel carpet, hair damp; she could think about it without a sadness pooling in her stomach.   

_That ship’s sailed, bitch, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and drive._

She exhales and releases the kickstand.

As she pulls out of the parking lot, she turns her head to look back through the front windows of Dela’s, and she thinks she can see Trixie looking her way as well, but then the faded sunlight bounces off the glass, and she can’t see anything at all.

 

~ 

Katya’s mother was beautiful.  

To fuck with people Katya used to say that if they weren’t related she’d be trying to _pin down that milf like there’s no tomorrow_ , use her best smoker voice, and gladly accept the slaps and gagging noises she’d receive in return.  She spoke Russian at home, and English when Svetlana was in a more peppy mood, although her English was always broken and heavily accented.  Katya had been lucky enough to grow up in the American education system, and couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to be a single mother learning a foreign language as you’re trying to raise a daughter who’s slowly developing a fascination with razor blades and The Indigo Girls.  Into her last years of highschool, Svet liked to sit on Katya’s bed and talk for hours, like they were old friends, till she eventually kissed Katya on the forehead (although she had always called her Katerina as a a nickname, not Katya), mumbled a soft _‘Dobroy nochi, detka’_ and slunk out the door. 

Even when she came out, Svet hadn’t missed a beat.   

Katya remembered how she’d been standing in the kitchen at seventeen years old drinking wine out of a coffee mug, eleven in the evening on a Tuesday, and barefoot, her hands shaking as she told her mother ‘ _ya lyublyu zhenshchiny’_ .  Svet had been quiet for a moment, before laughing and slamming her hands down on the table, saying _‘Good, Detka! You never get pregnant_ ’ and pouring herself her own mug of wine.

When it came to the story of how her mother had immigrated, Katya liked to keep things fun and interesting.   _Oh, she was a mail-order bride for a mob boss, but she went vengeful and cut off his dick and stuffed it into a piroshki, now we’re in witness protection._  Or better yet, Katya would insist that her real father was JFK, and he had to give her mother citizenship to keep her quiet about their intense and passionate love affair.  Stories were always better than reality. The reality was that Svetlana had always been secretive - even to Katya - about her entrance to the grand old US-of-A. Most she ever said was _trakhat'_ _Rossiya_ and on one memorable occasion, _ya sdelal eto dlya vas._

She had died of a stroke a few weeks before Katya’s thirty-second birthday.  

Thirty years old, you’d think Katya would’ve been better equipped to deal with something like that, but she likes to think of herself as divinely youthful.  Maybe that’s why it had been so hard. Why her first instinct was to get the fuck out of her mind. She then spent the following month telling herself that if she started using again, it would probably summon the ghost of her mother from the depths of heaven or hell - whichever she ended up in - and she would give Katya the biggest fucking slap of her life, and that’s what kept her clean.  

That, and hitting the road.

The road doesn’t feel so clean anymore though.

As the yellow stripes roll on, and on, and on, all she can see is the places where they’re cracked.  The beer cans people have thrown to the side of the highway, and the tire marks from previous collisions.  She keeps riding until she’s hours out of Saloma, and she really _did_ intend to drive through the night.  Shack up in yet another motel only when she’s exhausted and a minute away from passing out.  

The thing that stops her, ironically, is some hopeless drifter on the side of the road.  

Doesn’t look a thing like Miss Mattel, due to him being a bearded old man in shapeless pants and a drug rug, but he has his thumb sticking out west.

Katya remembers the first time she saw Trixie.  Arm slack by her body, backpack situated above her tiny waist, not even asking for a lift.  Katya remembers because her first thought after getting a look at Trixie’s ass was _I gotta fuck this bitch even if it kills me_ .  It had been pure luck that she was gay, _dumb_ luck even, or - god forbid - _good luck_.  

Katya drives for another twenty minutes after that before she finds herself pulling over onto the shoulder of road.  Her vision is entirely blurred, face hot with what she realizes too late are tears.

_Fuck._

She cuts her engine.   

The sun is sliding its way towards the tips of the trees, and soon it will be nighttime.  She’s cold underneath her jacket, and ironically, the cold forces her to remember how _warm_ it felt to be in bed next to someone.  Half the time they slept next to each-other, Trixie was the big spoon.  Katya would always rest so solidly feeling her lotion-soft skin, the faint breath against her neck, the way Trixie’s hands clung to her just a little too tight.  All of it. She remembered all of it. 

_God, when was the last time you acted like such a lovesick wretch?_

She asks herself and comes up empty.

Pulling off her helmet leaves her hair sticking up, and she doesn’t smooth it down; instead flips out her cell phone.  She’s traveling a part of the highway that doesn’t always see the light of day, so it’s no surprise when she finds that her phone has just two bars.  Two bars usually don’t do shit, but she internally prays to everyone she remotely believes in _(Jesus, and Sappho, and Jodie Foster, if you’re out there)_ that it’ll be enough to just get one call through. 

It rings once.  

Twice.  

And then, the soft beep signaling a dropped call.

“Oh, fuck you.”

She says it out loud into the open air, and shoves her phone into her pocket before she can full-on smash it against the pavement.   Her motor hums to life. She pulls her helmet back onto her face, damp, and peels back out onto the road.

~

It’s dark when she checks herself into a room.  

Exhaustion had come sooner than expected, but she’s in no rush to reach her destination.  This last week on the road is probably going to be the only time she can afford to really do _nothing_ for a while.  Ultimate freedoms.  Once she hits the California state lines, it’s apartment hunting, and working hard, and trying not to screw up yet another good situation.   

After months of staying in them, Katya decides that yes, she does hate motels.  This one is particularly downtrodden. All the lights are dim, piss-yellow, and the carpet feels like a bed of nails when she finally takes off her shoes.

She showers, but the shower won’t heat up all the way, and afterwards she ends up in bed underneath the covers wearing underwear, a long-sleeve, and her riding jacket for extra warmth.  

Her phone is heavy in her pocket.  When she pulls it out, there’s no messages.  She’s not even sure if Trixie would’ve received a missed call from her, the service was so bad, but she has full bars now.  Maybe the dropped call was God telling her to knock it the fuck off. Even if it was, though, she’s always been the God-defying type, and on the road she had a little more time to turn over in her head what she wants to say to Trixie.

She hits call.

Three times it rings, and then there’s a soft click on the other line.  For a moment she thinks Trixie has picked up the phone, and her heart jumps up into her throat, but then a robot woman is telling her that at the tone, she can leave a message.  

 _Great._  

The beep is deafening, and then there’s just silence.

She grips at the edge of the sheets with her free hand. 

“Hey, Trixie.” _God, her voice sounds so fucking weak,_ “I just - I don’t really know what I’m thinking actually, but I wanted to call you.  I know I just saw you.”

Every time she pauses, she can hear night birds singing in amongst the trees outside.  At another point in time, they might have sounded beautiful, but at this point it just sounds like mother nature is pointing at her and laughing.

“I’m in this absolute garbage dump of a motel.”  She laughs, “It’s like the one we stayed in, but if someone just took a shit on everything.”

In the room behind her, she can hear the telltale _bump, bump, bump_ of a headboard smacking into the wall.  She’s in no position to judge; when her and Trixie had rented a room for the night, she’s pretty sure they woke up the whole building, but it’s still annoying enough to make her sit up and cup her hand over the ear that isn’t on the receiver.

“God.  I think I really fucked up.”

Another few moments of silence.  

She should’ve written this down beforehand.  

And then before she can stop herself - _Jesus, she’s never cried this much in such a short timespan in her life_ \- a few tears are welling up around the brim of her eyes, because _this is it_.  She gets to lay her stupid fucking self down on the chopping block and hand Trixie the axe, and she has to do it alone in bed while listening to two strangers fuck each others brains out.  

“I want you.”  She starts, “I want you more than I’ve - I never felt like this, Trix, you gotta’ understand.  This is new territory for me.”

_Deep breaths.  Deep breaths._

She leans forward to rest her forehead against her own knees.  The covers smell like dust.

“I want you to come with me.  I was bullshitting, I always wanted you to come with me.  It’s definitely a bad idea, but...” She trails off “I dunno, I’m like three towns away, but I can leave in the morning.  I’ll wait outside Dela’s, I can be there at noon. Just… just show up if you want. And if you don’t want to...”

She lets out a shaky breath, and wonders if it’s obvious through the receiver that she’s crying.  

“Either way, I’m really fucking sorry.”  It’s rushed, and before she can stay anything else obscenely embarrassing, she hears the phone beep at her.  She pulls back, glances at the screen, and sees a little red battery symbol staring back at her.

_Fucking unreal._

It’s a miracle she doesn’t throw her phone at the floor, but she probably wouldn’t have enough resistance against the carpet to make it break.  It would just bounce and make her feel like an idiot.

She’s stunned, then, when she realizes she promised to go back to Saloma.  

Maybe if she had a little more backbone she would be able to let go of whatever her and Trixie had ( _Have? No, had)_ and just move the fuck forward.  But the way that she feels when she thinks about Trixie… it’s inconvenient and unavoidable.

Katya beds down underneath the paper-thin comforter.  Her jacket isn’t comfortable to sleep in, but it keeps her from shivering.  

The people on the other side of the wall stop fucking at around one in the morning.  After that, she hears them laughing, the sounds they make as they turn on music; old music, too.  Something by Ella.

Katya pulls the spare pillow over her head.  

She thinks about Violet, and L.A., and her bike, and the one time she dropped acid in a McDonalds and thought the employees were all undercover cops.  She thinks about ditching college, and the first tattoo she ever got, and then the second tattoo she ever got, and the third. Anything that isn’t about Trixie, or her mom, she thinks of it.  

And eventually, she sleeps.

~

**One Week Earlier**

 

It’s too hot to be in Trixie’s room, but they’re in Trixie’s room.  Ninety-five degrees and counting. Trixie’s joke of an air conditioner is doing its best, the little AC that could, but they’ve shucked her comforter off the bed and are laying mostly naked - save for Trixie, in her pink cotton boyshorts that she apparently only wears when she’s on her period - with cups of ice water melting in the nightstand, and a fan on high.  Katya really can’t keep up with the fluctuating weather. No complaints, though. This is a holy place where she can sport her birthday suit and nobody will give her shit for it.

She’s kissing gently over Trixie’s breasts, tasting the sweat, plus a weird chemical tang of perfume she must have put on hours ago.  Trixie’s hands ruffle through her hair. She’s been meaning to cut it soon; it’s grown so long it’s been getting into her eyes whenever she’s eating pussy.  

“Can I wear Deb?”

Katya pulls her mouth off where it had been sucking a bright red mark next to Trixie’s nipple.

“What?”

Trixie uses one of her pink fingernails to point at Katya’s bag that she’d already unzipped in anticipation.  There’s a small bit of leather and metal poking out.

“I’ve never put one on before.  And it’s not like you’re gonna fuck me right now, I’m bleeding.”  Trixie adds.

There’s something particularly fascinating about the idea of Trixie fitting that leather monstrosity over her hips, and Katya doesn’t really have any good reasons to say no, aside from the fact that she knows Trixie’s gonna get tired within a few minutes of dicking her down.

“You wanna fuck this rancid pussy, daddy? ”  Katya doesn’t even get the sentence out entirely before Trixie shoves her off by the forehead.  Katya cackles as she falls back against the bed, Trixie’s overly-soft mattress bouncing with her. 

“ _Never_ call me that ever again.”  Trixie complains, but it’s through a smile; through her biting down on her lip and reaching for the bag with her free hand.  “Also, I’m taking that as a yes.” 

She uses one finger to pull out the harness, the fake cock still situated inside the o-ring.  

Katya doesn’t mention that she’s never let anyone fuck her with one before.

Deb’s not freakishly large, but it’s not about the size, it’s about - it’s about something else.  A twinge of vulnerability, or a hesitancy to let herself be taken care of in that way, but Katya’s down to try anything once, and a second time just to make sure.  

Why shouldn’t it be here, with Trixie, of all places?

“Let me do it, it’s really confusing.”

Katya reaches out and grabs the harness out of her hand.  It clinks against itself as she unbuckles the straps, pulling them wider for Trixie’s unreal bombshell hips.

“Legs up.”  She tells Trixie, who sticks her feet into the air - little pedicured toes wiggling - and lets Katya loop it over one leg, then the other, and slide the harness down over her underwear.  Trixie lifts her hips so that Katya can situate the waistband just under the fold of Trixie’s stomach. _She’d look nice with a belly button piercing,_ Katya thinks, briefly,  “And then you tighten it here.”

Trixie reaches for the little buckle on the side.  She pulls the strap until it’s snug, creates a muffin top around her hips, and _God_ Katya wants to _kiss it_ , but then Trixie’s shuffling forward.  She kneels with Deb hanging between her legs, looking rather proud, and Katya absently wishes she had a pink dick to match her aura, or something. 

Trixie reaches down and wraps her hand around the length of it.

“Oh my god.”  Trixie’s smile is so big her cheeks are round, eyes bright, when she looks up at Katya, “This is fucking hot, I get why you wear this.”

“Well, with great power comes great responsibility.”  Katya says, getting to her knees as well, and grabbing Trixie by the hips, where the strap meets skin.  “Great responsibility to fuck me like ya’ mean it.”

Trixie chews on her bottom lip for a second, and then brings her arms up to Katya’s shoulders and shoves her back onto the mattress.  

Katya lands with a surprised huff of air, and grins - _who knew this bitch had it in her?_ It feels a little intimidating, but Katya doesn’t let herself close off.  She reaches up, grabs Trixie by the neck, and pulls her down into a kiss. Her mouth is cold from chewing on ice chips just a few minutes earlier.

Trixie’s lips are soft underneath Katya’s tongue, and softer still as she kisses down the side of Katya’s face, over her chin, but stops right before her neck.  Katya feels an exhale against her skin. 

“I’m kind of nervous.”  Trixie pulls back with a smile.  

Katya really wants to tell her that she has nothing to be nervous about, Katya doesn’t even have anything to compare it to, but instead she just shakes her head.

“Don’t be.”  She pokes Trixie in the pudge of her stomach, making her jump a little.  “I’m excited, let’s rock.”

She makes sure that nothing in her tone conveys that yeah, she’s nervous too, probably moreso.

Trixie’s rests her hands on Katya’s knees and pushes them open.  The sheets underneath Katya are bunched, and she wiggles her hips, trying to get as comfortable as she can.  It’s amazing how desperately they cling to her body, as Trixie’s fingers drag down the inside of her thighs, and then softly over her labia.  

There’s something strange about being underneath her in this way.  Strange seeing the calculated look in Trixie’s eyes as she presses a finger against Katya, and then inside her, followed almost immediately by a second.  Katya’s thankful for the slow start. She can count on one hand the amount of times she’s really let the other woman take charge. As Trixie’s fingers push inside her to the knuckle, sending sparse waves of pleasure through her pelvis, they make this sticky noise that can be heard even over the humm of the fan.  Katya lifts her hips up to meet the movement. Suddenly, she’s more thankful than ever about Trixie’s decision to ditch the fake nails.

“You can do three.”  Katya breathes.

Her face is flushed with the heat, and Trixie gradually eases a third finger inside her her.  It’s a stretch now, but she feels Trixie’s other hand resting against the skin of her stomach, just over the happy trail that Katya never bothers to shave, rubbing little circles with her thumb.  

“You’re so pretty.”  Trixie says quietly.

“Pretty?”

Katya’s been called a lot of shit, but not usually pretty.

Trixie curls her three fingers upwards, and the feeling makes Katya tense up, in a good way, and moan under her breath.

“Yeah.  Pretty.”  Trixie says again.

“You really need to get your fucking eyes checked - _ah!_ ” Katya’s cut off as Trixie quickens her pace, probably just to fuck with Katya, who’s still pinned in place underneath her hand.  She grits her teeth together, and can hear them grinding in the back of her skull, as well as Trixie’s bed squeaking underneath them.  

She’s not sure how Trixie takes it so easy.  How Katya can practically shove Deb into her at a moments notice and she’ll already be dripping and hungry for more.  Meanwhile, Katya’s huffing and making this embarrassing whining noise in the back of her throat.

“Fuck…” She moves her hips closer to Trixie’s lap, feeling the silicone of the strapon bumping into her thigh. _Right, she almost forgot._  “Gonna finger me all day or are you gonna get to it?”

Trixie rolls her eyes. 

“Can you shut up?”

“Not unless you make me.”  Katya smiles.

Suddenly, Trixie’s pulling her fingers out, leaving Katya empty.  There’s a pit in her stomach now that wasn’t there before. Just to tease, Katya rolls her hips up to rub her vulva against the length of the dildo, and Trixie rocks forward against her.  

Then Trixie tilts her head down, purses her lips, and spits onto the place where Deb is situated against Katya’s pussy.  It’s not lube, but it’s _something_ . _More than she deserves, maybe?_  

Before Katya can tease her about how it’s a move straight out of a cheap porn, Trixie leans forward and places her entire hand over Katya’s mouth.

“Make you?”  She asks.

It’s so different.  Trixie, delicate and soft above her, curled hair cascading over her little sun kissed shoulders, with a glint in her eye.  Katya’s never wanted this from anyone else. She nods as best she can under Trixie’s hand, and rocks her hips again, her clit dragging over the silicone and making her shudder.

When Trixie pushes in, she has the urge to bite her hand.

Katya moans loud underneath her, muffled, feeling every inch of it push inside till she’s so sure it has to be up to her fucking bellybutton, but Trixie’s only halfway in.  Katya’s breaths are coming heavy now. Both her hands are grasping at the sheets. She knows she could throw Trixie off in an instant if she wanted to, but she doesn’t want to.  She wants more than anything for Trixie to hold her down and do whatever she pleases.

“Jesus, Katya…” Trixie’s voice is reverent.

She pulls her hips back once, then pushes in again, and this time Katya struggles to not let her eyes roll into the back of her own head.  Trixie looks so beautiful like this, the black leather biting into her skin, the pale pink of her underwear. It almost makes Katya a angry that she never let anyone fuck her before, although she doubts it would’ve been the same.  She pictures herself with a different girl, holding her down, shoving into her dry or thoughtlessly. Someone who wouldn’t take the time to run their fingers over her body. Someone who would leave right away once they were done.

Then Trixie really starts to fuck her.  Hand over her mouth, she starts up a pace with her hips that has Katya whimpering into the warm skin of her palm, nonsense if she’s even forming sentences, because it feels _so fucking incredible_.  Above her she can see the bit of sweat beading on Trixie’s brow, but she’s not slowing down.  She’s determined.

Trixie removes her hand from Katya’s mouth, and immediately grabs one of her nipple piercings, tugging on it enough to make Katya hiss out a high-pitched _fuck_.  Trixie’s neatly groomed eyebrows are furrowed, half-hidden under the messy strands of hair that cling to her forehead, and Katya sucks in a gasp of air that she hadn’t fully been able to take.

“Tell me - tell me that you like it.”  Trixie’s voice is punctuated with deep breaths.

It’s no little effort, Katya knows, keeping your hips moving like that, but she doesn’t miss a beat.  Fucks into Katya through every word, forcing her whole body to rock. She’s still got the ball bearing through Katya’s nipple in a death grip, too, and tugs on it a second time.

“ _Like it_?”  Katya asks, and despite all the sensations wracking her body, she feels a smile break out over her face,  “Don’t - don’t you dare fucking slow down, God, you’re so fuckin’ hot Trix.”

Katya loves to ramble during sex.  She’s usually a little more in control of it, getting to pick and choose her words, but it’s like she can feel Trixie in the back of her fucking throat forcing it out of her.  Katya lifts her head, to look down at where their hips meet, where she can see Trixie grabbing at her hip with one hand and pushing inside her. It makes her dizzy. Makes her want to go boneless, but she keeps her eyes open.  

She knows that if she were in Trixie’s place, she would draw it out longer.  Really make her work for it. But she’s not, and Trixie isn’t that evil - thankfully.  Trixie lets go of her nipple and brings her hand down, brushing over her stomach, to rub small circles over Katya’s clit, finally.  

“Oh my _God_.”

Katya’s voice rings out in the room, mixed in with Trixie’s panting.  She’s not going to last long, can’t remember the last time she felt so absolutely useless in bed, like all she could do was lay there.  Maybe never. Trixie’s not saying much, her entire being apparently focused on just fucking Katya’s brains out, but that’s _fine_.  

Only then does Katya let her eyes fall shut.  Let herself feel instead of think. Cataloging in her brain the ragged breaths of air Trixie’s taking, how her hands feel rubbing her off, holding onto her hip.  

She doesn’t even realize that she’s coming until it’s too late to say anything about it.   

Katya lets out a choked-off moan, and then she’s shuddering against Trixie. Trixie doesn't have to be told either, she knows when it hits her, and fucks into Katya once, twice, three times, then her hips go still.  It rolls through Katya’s body even after they stop moving. Even as Trixie pulls out slowly, and Katya whimpers at the sudden emptiness.

They breathe.  The sheets underneath them are drenched in sweat that will absolutely warrant a laundry run before the day is through.  Katya can hear Trixie reaching for the glass of water on the nightstand, ice clinking against the edges as she gulps down a mouthful.  

Katya clears her throat.

“Can I hit that?”  She sounds like she’s fifty years old, her voice is so worn from the moaning, and Trixie giggles.

“Thirsty?”  She asks

Katya feels Trixie lean down over her body, their legs sticking together.  She opens her mouth expecting a kiss, but instead feels Trixie drop a piece of ice between her lips.  It makes Katya open her eyes in surprise, and she doesn’t waste any time biting down on it between her teeth.  Strangely enough, the weird hot-and-cold crashing together sensation sends another aftershock through her body; the memory of an orgasm rekindled by her confused skin cells.

Between Trixie’s legs, Deb looks worse for wear.  Gooey and dripping, but still laced tight enough that she won’t fall off Trixie’s hips anytime soon.  Katya sucks on the ice as she lifts herself to her elbows.

“Can I do something really stupid?”  Trixie asks suddenly.

Katya frowns.

“Never had to ask my permission before.”  She says, listens to Trixie’s little scoff.

Trixie shuffles forward so she’s kneeling next to Katya’s head.  She reaches down to smooth over Katya’s hair, messy and partly-damp, and grabs a fistful of it to hold her head in place.  

And then, Trixie slaps her in the face with a dick.

It’s not hard.  Barely a slap, but it leaves a wet mark on her cheek, and Katya’s mouth falls open.  

“Oh my fucking god.”  She glances up at Trixie, almost in awe of how dumb and endearing it is at the same time. _Intro to wearing a fake cock, truly._ Katya can’t help but laugh.  “Are you for real right now?”

“I told you it was stupid.”  Trixie shrugs, and Katya shakes her head.

_She’s so fucking cute._

Just for shits and giggles, Katya leans forward and opens her mouth, wrapping it around the head of Deb, batting her eyelashes up at Trixie.  She’s barely biting back a laugh, but she can tell Trixie gets a kick out of it, the way she pulls off and licks her lips, tasting herself, bitter on her own tongue.  

“So, first time, how’d it go?” Katya asks.

“Thrilling, but I’m definitely more of a lay there and do nothing type of girl.”  Trixie says, as she begins to unbuckle the harness and lets it drop around knees on the bed.

“Well I could’ve told you that.” Katya teases.  

“You were really beautiful though.”

Trixie wiggles out of the harness and kicks it to the edge of the bed.  When she flops down next to Katya, it’s dramatic, one hand thrown over her own eyes.  She lets out this huge huff of air, and peeks one eye open. They’re overdue for a shower, but Katya’s entire body still feels like play dough.  She’s not in a rush to move. 

“Do you work tonight?”  Katya reaches out and pushes a few strands of hair away from Trixie’s face.

“Yeah, I can’t wait.  Lately there’s been this one guy who’s dementia sets in when he’s halfway through his hashed browns and he thinks it’s nineteen-eighty-one and I’m his late wife Clementine.”  Trixie replies.

Katya groans.

“I wish it was nineteen-eighty-one.”  Katya says, reaching forward and tapping on Trixie’s pink underwear.  “Could finally get you to grow that bush out, mama.”

Trixie shoves her hand away, but then grabs it, and tangles their fingers together. 

“Shut up, I like shaving.”  She complains.

Katya feels the sweat already forming on their palms, but it doesn’t matter.

“I can give you a ride to work if you want.”  Katya offers. “Pull up on the back of a Harley, make everyone hard?”  

Trixie smiles from underneath her arm, and gives Katya’s hand a squeeze.  If it wasn’t so hot, Katya would be tempted to fall asleep next to her. Melt into the mattress and forget that she promised Ginger that later on, she’d take a look at a leak that had formed in the ceiling of her brand-fucking-new jetstream, and was dripping onto the beautiful hardwood kitchen flooring.

“I’d love that.”  Trixie says.

 _Nothings good forever,_ Katya thinks, _but this is good._

_Yeah.  This is just good._

~

Despite the odds, Katya wakes up feeling refreshed.  The motel might be a filthy dead cockroach of an excuse for a place to stay, but the mattress isn’t half bad.  It had warmed up in the night, and she has to peel her leather jacket off where sweat has collected on her arms.  The sunlight shines in geometric sections through the spaces in the curtains, showcasing the dust particles in the air, and Katya stretches upright in bed. 

_Great!  Let’s do this!  Let’s fucking do this!_

She packs quickly; brushes her teeth in the rusty sink and drags a brush through her hair, which has dried flat against her head on the pillow.  She doesn’t look half-bad, but it wouldn’t matter either way. Trixie’s already seen her in all different states of disarray.

On her way out she stops by the vending machine out front and buys herself a real breakfast of champions, that consists of a boxed orange juice and protein bar.  It keeps her on-edge while she rides, but not passing out, which is pretty much her exact standards when it comes to food.

She arrives ten minutes early.  

Never been early to a single fucking thing in her life, but she’s early now, out the front of Dela’s at noon.  It’s a Thursday, she knows Trixie never works Thursdays, so it would be easy for her to avoid Katya if she wanted to.  Really easy to just stay home with her piss-poor excuse for a roommate and never have to deal with Katya again. 

Out in the parking lot, there’s four cars, and a bike leaning bravely unchained up against the side of the building.  The sun hasn’t quite burned the clouds off yet. Everything’s dirty grey, and she checks her watch, and it’s _one minute_ till noon.

Katya pulls out her pack of cigarettes and taps one out against her hand.  She hadn’t been lying at the lake, when she said she needed to quit, but what the fuck else is she supposed to do in moments like these?  Idle hands and everything.

When she sparks the lighter, she notices fondly that the flame is warm against the blue-grey hues of the parking lot.

~

It’s thirteen minutes past noon.

Trixie isn’t coming.

She knows in her heart if hearts that Trixie isn’t coming, because _why the fuck would she?_  In fact, thinking that she would show her face was probably that kind of delusional shit for people who read Nicholas Sparks.  The kind of thing that Katya always thought she was above. If anything, she should feel embarrassed about the message she’d left.  Getting all mushy and gooey over the receiver. Trixie probably thinks she’s pathetic, and even if she doesn’t, she still has every reason to stay put.  A job, a place to live. All her possessions. Everything she’s worked so hard for is here. All Katya can really offer her is a shoulder to cry on and a face to sit on.  

And sometimes, she can’t even offer that.

She tries not to think about the numbness as she swings her leg over the side of her bike.  After a few months in L.A. she’ll be able to forget about it, and then it’ll all just be memories to laugh about, memories to shove away into the back of her mind.

 _One more cigarette_ , she thinks.

 _One more cigarette and then I’ll go._  

She really hopes that nobody who works at Dela’s has actually noticed her sitting out in the parking lot on her bike.  She’s positioned herself off to the side, away from the front entrance, but by now a few of the regulars have probably observed her and Trixie’s little month-long endeavor with detached amusement, and know to watch out for her.  

_But hey, it’s a lot cheaper than cable._

Katya lights the cigarette and inhales.  Smoke spills out of her nostrils as she tucks her lighter back into her jacket pocket.  Now that she thinks about it, hard, there would be so many downsides to taking Trixie on the road with her.  They would bicker. She would have to shell out more money to feed Trixie, who didn’t just have an inheritance laying around in an account that never seemed to run dry.  Trixie seemed like a bit of a little bitch, too, when it came to showering and sleeping in a real bed, compared to Katya, who can run on a cup of coffee and a brisk slap to the face for a good three days straight.  

She smokes slowly, taking small inhales.  Most of the nicotine just wafts into the air and ends up carried away by the rolling summer wind.  

She checks her watch.

It’s twenty-three minutes past noon.

 _Yeah, it’s best that she didn’t show.  Getting stood up builds character._  

Katya takes one final glance around the parking lot, dismal and flat, no sign of another human, and then sucks down the last half-inch of the cigarette, to the filter.  It falls from her mouth as she swings her leg over the bike. The kickstand squeaks back into place underneath her boot.

At least this time she knows to drive further than three towns, because despite her low standards and questionable taste, she can’t stay another night in that same motel.  Not if her life depended on it.

When she tugs the helmet on, it covers her ears, so much so that she’s entirely sure she’s hallucinating someone calling her name.

Then she hears it again.

Her hand goes very still on the handlebar, and she feels this sensation in the back of her throat.  Somewhere between panic and excitement crawling out of her ribcage. She turns her helmet-clad head to look in the direction of the road, and like the clouds parting, or an oasis in a fucking desert, she’s there.

Massive backpack on her shoulders, hair tied back into a ponytail, running shoes on - she’s _there_.

Katya hastily pulls her helmet off her own head and shoves the kickstand back down.  She knows she should be playing it cool - lean against the handlebars all cocky and give her a wink, but she’s just _smiling_.  Trixie’s a good distance away, and to close the last ten feet or so, she breaks into a half-run.  

She shuffles to a stop just in front of Katya’s bike.

Katya gives her a once-over, slowly.

“You’re kinda’ late.”  

It’s all Katya can think to say.

“My phone died on the way over.”  Trixie breathes, clearly exhausted from however fast she’d been walking.  Enough of her concealer has rubbed off that Katya can see the little freckles peeking out over her apple-red cheeks.  “My next plan was smoke signals, but you’re the one who carries a lighter.”

Katya glances at Trixie’s backpack.

This is crazy.  This is so ridiculously crazy.

She dismounts the bike so that she’s standing in front of Trixie upright, leaning gently against the leather of the seat.  At this rate even if they ride until night, they won’t be able to leave state lines in the same day, unless Trixie is _really_ up for an adventure.

“What about your apartment?”

“I hate my roommate, I hope she fucking starves.”  Trixie replies without missing a beat. _It’s so chipper._  “Seriously, my name’s not on the lease.”

“And that - “  Katya points to her backpack, “ - that’s all your stuff.”

“All I could take.”  Trixie shrugs. 

Everything Katya could say she already said in that stupid message, sobbing her guts out onto moldy motel sheets.  Everything important, all the warnings she could give Trixie about how she’s a wreck, and she’s still not sure that it will work out - them, together - and that Trixie might hate being with her; they both know it all.  

And honestly?  Katya doesn’t fucking care. 

She grabs Trixie by the waist and hauls her forward.  

When they kiss it’s messy - she almost misses Trixie’s mouth at first - but she’s biting down on her lips, tasting the fresh layer of lip gloss, cherry-flavored, the wet heat of it crawling down her throat.  Trixie winds her hands into the lapels of Katya’s jacket. If someone tried to pull them apart, Katya’s not sure they could, even when their mouths break apart and they stand there panting like a couple of idiots.

Katya reaches forward and flicks one of Trixie’s dangling pink jewel earrings.

She can’t believe anyone’s this lucky.  Especially not her.

“You are gonna’ look so sexy with a tan, you fuckin’ Malibu Barbie bitch.”  Katya shakes her head, reaching behind herself to grab her helmet again. She grins as she tugs it over her head, flips the visor down.  “Now get on before I change my mind.” 

Trixie damn-well near scrambles onto the bike.   

Katya slides in front of her and _finally_ , after one whole cigarette and what would’ve eventually turned into a panic attack, she revs the engine.

Trixie’s hands slide around her.  They melt into the fabric of her t-shirt, good warmth even underneath the summer sun.  

As the peel out of the parking lot, neither of them turn their heads to look behind.  

~

The stripes on the highway are all different shades of yellow.  Some bright, some cracked and faded with tire marks, others paved over and repainted too many times to count.  Katya’s mother used to say this stupid overdone proverb whenever Katya would stay too many nights at a friends house, _v gostyákh khoroshó, a dóma lúchshe_.  Being a guest is good, but being at home is better.  For every different state she’s been a guest in - every different couch that she’s called a bed, all the motels she’s checked into, and even Ginger’s little hovel - she hasn’t felt like she was home.  It’s a certain type of feeling, like when she’d slide back underneath her own sheets as a teenager, the scent of fresh-cooked Solyanka drifting up through the floorboards, after washing vodka and someone else’s vomit out of her hair.  That incomparable feeling of rest.

On the highway, with Trixie at her back, shifting every once in a while to place a kiss underneath the collar of her jacket, she feels at peace.  She feels the rest. Not home, but something close to it. 

Something that will be a home, if God has any grace left to give her.

**Author's Note:**

> songs to read to:
> 
> ya hey - vampire weekend  
> hummed low - odessa  
> mother & father - broods  
> call it fate, call it karma - the strokes  
> hollow body - pity sex


End file.
